A Descent Into the Maelstrom (The Cook, Book 2)
by fire-is-my-happy-place
Summary: The BLU team has fractured. Leadership has been allowed to fall to the most vicious, cunning and depraved of its members. Out of frustration, BLU team members blow RED's respawn, taking with them the RED team's masochist to be the target of their sadistic rage. Having learned to kill, she descends into the heart of the BLU team's madness.
1. Prologue

The Crock Pot had set itself to warm with a quiet click several hours before the day's battle ended. The remains of preparation were scattered over the counter—the ends of celery ribs, onion skins, carrot tips, bits of potato on a chopping board, an empty bottle of burgundy standing neatly beside the Crock Pot and its cork. The knife laid neatly across the board and the vegetables on it. The savory, herby smell of _bouef bourguignon_ filled the kitchen, empty but for the smell and the inanimate objects on the counter.

The Soldier was the first to find the empty kitchen, worry immediately knotting his eyebrows. He left it, his normally exhausted after-battle pace quickening, and went to her room, then the living room. Seeing no one, he started to open doors to the mercenaries' rooms, calling her name. He paused in front of the Demo's door—the man had been clear enough about the explosives he'd put on the other side of it and the cost of barging in—and called through it, first softly, then bellowing, his voice echoing in the halls. Silence answered him and he ran for the main doors, meeting the rest of the RED team as they trickled in.

It took him three tries to tell anyone, chest heaving, still bloody and singed from the day's battle. When he stopped them one-by-one, they at first shied away from him, from the white rims around his eyes and the expression on his face. The news was even less pleasant than they supposed from his expression and they joined the search on hearing it, fanning out to search the barren desert around the base as well, calling her with a mix of pet names and her own, learning it as the Soldier bellowed it.

None of them had seen her, not since that morning when she sat across the table from the Spy, glaring at him as if she were planning to launch herself across the table and slit his throat with a butter knife. The Spy himself would say nothing about her, going immediately to his room when he heard the news. His door slammed in a rare show of temper. The Sniper, hearing the boom of the door slamming, went to it. Rapping with his fist on the door got no response but the faint sounds of the mercenaries calling her name outside. The Sniper picked the lock with a rather specialized set of small hooks pulled from a thin roll in his back pocket—a gift from his lover—and let himself in, stepping over the grease-darkened tripwire. The Spy, face down on the bed, didn't bother to look up.

"Sneak," the Sniper said softly. "You can't just lay here."

" _Vas te faire encule, baise-moi, et son basier aussi_. Fuck the entire lot of us," the Spy growled into the bed. " _J'_ s _uis trop fatigue pour cette merde_."

The Sniper frowned with concentration, translating in his head, then sighed. "Sneak, I know. But you can't sit this out."

" _Nique ta mere!_ "

The Sniper sat down on the edge of the bed, watching his lover run his fingers over and over through the unruly, salt and pepper curls on the back of his head, forehead pressed to the mattress, invective muffled by the bed. What he could hear ran high to mothers, fucking, and the cruelty of luck, sprinkled with the occasional goat. After a few minutes, the Spy turned his reddened face, panting. "Do you realize," he said, fingers knotted in his hair, "that if she has run, they will send the BLU Spy after her? It will not be me, it will be him because she is a member of this team and not BLU. He is not… He is not a reasonable man."

The Sniper sighed and briefly touched his lover's back, which twitched under his fingers like the skin of a horse beset by biting flies. Pulling his hand back, he stood up. When he opened his mouth to speak, the bomb went off, throwing him down across the Spy and spattering them both with ceiling plaster and fragments of concrete.


	2. Wishing for Death

The Cook expected to wake in a cage, not strapped to a bed in an unfamiliar surgery. The few details she could see, those closest to her, told her she was not at the RED base. The desk was moved to the other side of the room, if the large, dark brown splotch was a desk. Blue, rather than red paint, covered the walls. Her jaw hurt, too swollen to close, and her vision was even more blurry than usual without her glasses. She rotated her feet, finding them bare again, and tried the straps around her, wriggling first gently to test the give, then throwing herself at them to see if they had the strength to hold her. The leather held with a creak, moving very little as she thrashed.

A face appeared over her head—dark brown hair falling straight across a pale forehead, grey streaks on either side of it. A pair of squared glasses perched on the end of a long nose, sitting over hazel eyes. The thin lips twisted wryly. "Well, she's awake now," he said over his shoulder. She recognized the BLU Medic's voice, putting the face to it with a visceral shock—he was utterly innocuous looking, even handsome in a bland sort of way. The rifle's scope and distance had been as good as a disguise on him.

"I'm almost sorry. If she'd been out much longer, I would have assumed she wasn't going to wake up and let myself have a little fun." The Medic leaned away from her, becoming another blotch in her vision. When he spoke, his voice held a thin thread of heat. "If I don't get the chance to vent some of my urges soon, I'm going to start to be a bit unpleasant."

"I'll try to grab another one next time," the BLU Soldier said, startling her into a violent twitch. "But this little thing was wandering around the field by herself, and you know what they say about wasted opportunity."

She turned her head from side to side, her head ringing with pain, trying to pick him out against the blurry shapes around her.

"Yes, yes," the Medic said. "I have to make a trip into one of the big towns and bring back something to play with soonish, and I'll just take my chances with the RED Spy." The crinkling sound of gloves being peeled off came from above her head and to her right. "Don't get my surgery dirty playing with her," he grumbled.

"Not going to stay, Doc?" The Soldier's tone was mocking, and she found him them, an ink blot sitting on a chair near her.

"I am not," the Medic said stiffly, "nearly desperate enough to watch you play."

The Soldier shrugged. "I ain't gonna play with her here, but we ain't that different Doc. I just like to fuck 'em, too. And I'm usually catch and release." He stood and walked to the bed, bringing himself into focus. As he reached out for the buckles on the restraints, she flinched and his eyes lit up. "Hello, Honey. We were interrupted last time before we could get to know each other, but that won't happen now."

"They'll find me," she muttered, voice slurred by the swelling in her jaw.

"Not likely," he said, feeding the leather through the buckle deftly. "They're a bit busy right now."

"Busy?" The word came out of her mouth in a spray of spit, lips unable to close around the 'b'.

"Don't worry about it." The Soldier finished un-strapping her and hefted her over one shoulder like a bag of potatoes. She gagged, her head throbbing as the Soldier walked and she swayed. "Seems like you do that a lot," he said, laughter lurking in the back of his voice.

"It's your company," she mumbled, trying to hold herself up to keep the room from its sickening dance around her head.

The laughter came out in a pleased purr, tone jogged by his steps. "Fight me for it, baby. Good." He swatted her across the ass playfully. "Don't you lose that fire. I want to hear you swearing before you start screaming."

He could feel her shiver against his shoulder and back and his hand crept up to caress her ass, to feel her shudder again. "Skin crawling, Honey?"

She said nothing, the skin of her stomach jumping against his shoulder. He smiled, pupils expanding wide and dark, and caught his lower lip in his teeth. The BLU Engineer came out of his room and stopped, seeing them—a short, black-haired man, buzzed nearly bald, and the slump she'd been able to see from the scope. Seeing the Soldier, he sighed heavily, long lines forming around his mouth as hunched down. "Don't you ever get tired of that shit," he asked, with a hint of a drawl in his voice. _Jesus_ , he thought, _that poor woman_. And behind that thought, a surge of gratitude that made him want to cry— _it's not me_. _Oh god, this time it's not me_.

The Soldier stopped, looking down at him, his voice still filled with the pleased purr. "Did you want to help me take some pressure off? Because I can come back for you."

The BLU Engineer flinched, his whole body shrinking back to hide behind the door.

"Didn't think so," the Soldier said. "Go back to your room and be glad I'm not bored and looking for something to do."

"I'm going to rig a gun on my door," the Engineer muttered, hands shaking. "I'm going to rig my fucking door."

"You do that, Dumpling," the Soldier said. "You do that and see what happens."

The Engineer closed the door with a click, and the Cook could hear locks turning.

"That never gets old," the Soldier said, pitching his voice so that the Engineer could hear him, letting the silence spread with the Engineer's fear before he walked on. _Little bastard is probably pissing his pants already_ , the Soldier thought with the pleasure of a craftsman.

She realized that she'd gone past terror, into some floating state that was nearly drunken in its dizzying distance. "Terrorizing your teammates," she slurred, and eyed his back, trying to find his kidneys. "Nice team spirit."

At that, the Soldier paused mid-step, putting his foot down with a painful jar. "Team spirit?" His laughter boomed in the confined space of the hall, rattling her teeth and sending another white hot wave of pain and nausea through her head. "Honey, this is war, not a game." The Soldier shook his head in disbelief, dark hair tickling her exposed side.

The BLU Spy flickered into sight behind them. She thrashed, falling down again on the Soldier's back and pushing painfully up.

"I see the little bitch woke up," the Spy said, pulling his mask off. He was, she thought with a new surge of nausea, a pretty man—a few brown spots dotted a cheekbone, but the high cheekbones, the pouting lips, the dark eyes, the squared jaw—memorably handsome. She realized she was staring, and the elegant curve of his lower lip bent into a graceful smile as he saw, reflected on her face, the recognition of his beauty. He blew her a kiss then and she blanched, watching malice transform him from a pretty face to something sinister.

The Soldier half-turned, setting off another wave of nausea in the Cook, who gagged. "Don't blow your load yet, Sweetie," he said, turning his head slightly to look at her, "or I'll make you lick it off."

"Yeah," he said to the Spy. "I'm on my way to have a little fun. You coming?"

The Spy shrugged, eyes on her pale face and the huge, blue-purple bruise on it. "Hell, why not. I owe her."

"She get you?"

"Bitch kicked me in the ribs and kneed me in the nuts. I owe her at least a rib shot, and I'm curious. She's a loud fuck. Every time I scout their base, I hear her making some kind of noise."

She realized her head was shaking back and forth from the pain ricocheting between her ears, the pleading fear in her expression making the Spy smile with genuine pleasure.

"Is that so?" The Soldier shifted her on his shoulder. "I always did like the noisy ones." He turned again and the Cook gagged. "Like I said, Honey, you don't want to do that on my shirt."

A huge man wearing a stained white tank top and black BDUs walked out of the living room as they passed it, characteristic shaved head and gigantic build telling her who he was before he spoke. "I see she woke up." The BLU Heavy drummed his fingers against his stomach, eyeing the bruise across her jaw and the shivering terror on her face.

"Yeah," the Soldier said. "She's open for business now. I know she got you earlier. Did you want to have a little fun?"

The BLU Heavy looked at the Soldier with mild contempt. "I'm not the sharing type. At least not with you two."

"So I'll make her take a shower." The BLU Soldier picked her up, fingers digging into her waist, and changed shoulders while she scrabbled to find a way to keep her head level. "Make up your mind."

"I'll pass," the Heavy rumbled. "She looks like shit."

"So have the Medic come by later with his medigun." The Soldier kept walking, and the Cook watched the Heavy's face slowly show his acidic contempt for both men to their backs. The Heavy, seeing her watching him, mouthed "sorry" before he left focus. He turned his back on them, walking away, his shoulders creeping up as they parted ways.

The Soldier tightened the arm he had wrapped around her thighs and opened a door. "Honey, we're home," he announced, and tossed her on the neatly made bed, jarring her teeth and sending a white hot burst of agony in fireworks behind her eyes. She gasped, laying there stunned. The Spy walked in behind him and locked the door, gingerly pulling off his suit jacket and putting it over the chair by the desk. He put his balaclava and gloves on top of it and started to remove his vest, folding it neatly.

The Soldier reached out, grabbing her bruised chin, and turned her head, digging his fingers into the bruises and forcing tears from her, her eyes rolling before being able to focus on him. "Oh no, Honey, I want your attention. He's just here for the show."

Behind him, the Spy shrugged. "I may participate at some point." He pulled the desk chair forward, turned it around, and sat on it, elbows on the back of the chair. Seeing her looking at him, he grinned in predatory anticipation.

The Soldier shrugged, still smiling at her and tightening his fingers. "I want your attention. Don't make me have to remind you again."

Her fingers curled into fists in her lap.

"I see that, Sugar. Let's go ahead and reduce that temptation." He reached behind himself, into the back pocket of his BDUs, and pulled a pair of handcuffs out. "Gimmie your wrists," he said, letting one of the loops dangle between his fingers and sway.

She scooted backward until she reached the wall, locking her hands together behind her, and stared at him. The room slid around her and righted slowly, blunting her rage. _I think I have a concussion_ , she thought numbly.

The Soldier smiled, pleased. "I don't mind working for it."

He rolled the cuffs over into a single hand and cocked his fist back again, punching her on her unmarked cheek. Her head bounced back, lip split and bleeding freely into her mouth. While she reeled, he pulled one of her arms forward and snapped the cuff around her wrist.

"That's one, honey. Want another? I figured you'd like pain, but this is quickly turning into a whole different kind of fun. There's not many women that would ask to play punching bag."

She growled at him and spat blood, aim queered by the undulation of the room around her, leaving a splotch on his cheek. The Spy laughed from his chair, and licked his lips. The Soldier looked down at her for a moment, anger burning two spots high on his cheeks. The slap was lightning fast, rocking her head again while he threaded the handcuffs through the bed frame, then snapped her second wrist into them.

"There we are," he panted, standing. "No more nasty hands."

"You have more? She can still kick." The Spy stood, shirtless, by the head of the bed. She could see her footprint, a purple splotch curving up his rib cage— _I've lost time_ , she thought with a surge of panic. _He was sitting and I didn't see him move_.

"Oh, kicking is just fine," the Soldier said, dismissively, ducking out of range of her feet. "All you have to do is get close." He stepped away from the bed and walked around it to dig in a foot locker.

The Cook spat again, clearing her mouth and leaving a red stain across the now mussed wool blanket. She pulled experimentally on the cuffs and bed frame, the effort of it taking all of her concentration. Both were too solid to break or bend.

The foot locker at the end of the bed clinked, and the Soldier stood up. "I'm a bit traditional in some ways, when I have the time," he said, flexing the crop between his hands. "And Honey, we have time. But first, let's get those nasty clothes off you."

She watched him tuck the crop through a belt loop, where it tilted out against his thigh. The Soldier reached out behind himself without looking and the Spy sighed, pulling his balisong out of his slacks and dropping it into the Soldier's reaching hand.

"You could use your own," the Spy said, crossing his arms gingerly over his bruised chest.

The Soldier shrugged and flipped it open. With an efficiency that spoke of long practice, he grabbed her shirt, pulling it taut, and cut a long line in it, holding it tense as he went. When he'd split her black turtleneck down the middle, he worked his fingers between her arms and the sleeves and split those, then pulled the remains of the shirt from her. She rolled when he reached for her bra straps, trying to keep him away from them. He sighed and fell on her, pinning her flat and sending the room reeling again. He sawed through both bra straps, then lifted the center of her beige bra away from her skin and sawed through that. She rolled harder when he put a hand on the button of her jeans, the room spinning wildly around her. He laid the point of the knife against her stomach and started to work it under the edge of her jeans, starting a shallow slice. After that, she lay still while he unbuttoned, unzipped, then finally yanked the jeans from her. The underwear, he sliced off entirely, throwing it over his shoulder for the Spy to dodge.

The Soldier stood up, looking down at her, and flipped the knife over his fist, closing it. "Well, there we have it," he said, looking down her slowly. Pale, pale skin— _the curtains match the drapes_ , he thought, pleasantly surprised—angry, chest heaving, heavy breasts and pale pink nipples, cold and fear hardened, freckles on her face and a few splashed across her chest.

"Huh," the Spy said. "I would never have guessed from all the baggy shirts she wears on the field."

"Kinda chesty, ain't she? Little bit of a belly, too, but we'll fix that quick enough."

She hissed at them both like a cornered cat, feral and enraged.

"Did you want another one," the Soldier said casually, showing her the back of his hand and the thick dusting of dark hair on it. "I hate to knock you out again this soon, but I can always borrow the medigun."

He watched the furious blush wash across her, pleased. _Reactive little thing, ain'tcha_ , he thought. "Well, Rosie, it's not a bad canvas to start with. All that pale skin marks up nicely." The Soldier stood up and pulled the crop from his belt loop. "I'll avoid your face, since I've already given it a bit of a treatment, but the rest of you is mostly unbruised. I see from the little cuts on your hands and arms that you've been playing with knives, so I'll have to remember not to let you have anything sharp."

The Spy snorted. "I doubt she's any good, and it might be funny."

The Soldier shrugged in irritation. "Play cat and mouse on your own time." He ran his hands down the crop, warming up the leather and watching her struggle to maintain the anger on her face. "This is my time. And for my time, I get to play my way." Her unfocused eyes were riveted to the loop at the end of the crop, and he turned it slightly, watching her follow it.

When the leather was supple and warm, he smiled. "Now, here's the game. I'm going to beat you. The more you struggle, the longer I beat you and the more likely you are to get the crop somewhere you don't want it." He nudged the seam between her legs with the loop at the end of the crop. "I'm going to get the inside of your thigh, but if you make too much of a mess out of this, I'll leave you so bruised you won't be able to walk. And then I'll start in on the bottoms of your feet."

She took a loud breath and tensed up, muscles jumping under the skin of her stomach.

The Soldier chortled, gleefully. "Oh, you do that. Here's a fun fact, Sugar: that makes it hurt worse." He took an experimental swing, the crop cutting the air with a sizzle. Seeing the wince she couldn't hide, he couldn't resist teasing. "Not your first time on this ride, Honey?" _I promise_ , he added silently, _it won't be like any ride you've had before_.

She made a small noise like a sob when he touched her with the loop, twitching in spite of her desire not to give him the satisfaction. Heat ran up him like a tingling flood, making his breath hiss between his teeth. He ran the loop up her then, tickling and caressing, waiting for the reduction in muscle tension that would signal relaxation. After a few minutes, the ridges of muscle in her arms and thighs melted down into her legs, and with a brisk slap, he laid a welt across her stomach. She gasped and instinctually curled.

"Count for me, Sugar," he said, voice thick and hot.

"Fuck you," she slurred through her gritted teeth.

"Count or I'll come love tap your face again, and when you wake up, I'll be in what my instructors used to call a stress position." _There a spreader bar in my closet_ , he added silently, _that I've been dying to try out_.

"One," she spat, glaring at him.

The second strike curled up the underside of her breast with a flare of liquid agony and she hissed, arms and hands shaking with tension.

"Count."

"Two." She kept eye contact, kept glaring at him, split lip finally scabbed over and jaw still to bruised to fully close her lips.

 _I can see you fading, Honey_ , he thought. _Bet you're dizzy as shit right now and hurting bad_. _But you keep glaring as long as you can._ He could feel it rising, electric and vicious, up his spine— _I'm high as a motherfucker, Sugar_ , he thought, _and it'll only get better for me when you crack_.

With a nasty smile, he went back to tickling, dragging the loop over her newly bruised face and down to tease her nipples.

"They get hard without me being turned on," she mumbled, looking at the incandescent mixture of lusts on his face, horribly like the expression the RED Sniper had shown her in the stifling heat of the nest. _It's the same_ , she thought, skin crawling. _It's the same face, the same place. Rage and lust and the need to destroy, which means he's currently drunk as shit on it right now._

"Honey," he said, laughter in his voice. "Trust me when I say your head will follow your body, and you'll punish yourself for what I'm going to make you do a long time after I get tired of punishing you."

He laid another stripe across her stomach, making her grunt and curl, then laid another between her breasts on the rebound, watching the burst blood vessels bloom beneath her skin. Even with her fuzzy vision, she could see that he was hard, breath harsh and echoing across the bare walls of his room. She was naueastingly reminded of the RED Sniper, of the bowl of rock around them both and his body in hers. The Cook's face twitched, missed by the Soldier, but not the Spy, who had resumed his position in the chair to watch the Soldier work.

The Spy smiled then, watching the memories crossing in her head and the way they reflected, confused, in her body. Her knees fractionally opened and closed, pupils opening with her lips. _What are you remembering_ , he thought.

"Spread 'em," the Soldier said, chest heaving.

The Cook locked her ankles immediately and he laughed. "You'll spread them or I'll spread them for you and we'll get the party started early. Would you like that, Rosie-girl?" He rubbed himself, framing his cock in his pants and watching the horror tint her face green. "Wanna get started early? Just say the word."

She slowly opened her knees, hesitation evident in the shake of her thighs, the way they kept twitching toward each other, trying to close again.

"Now keep them open," the Soldier said, fingers white-knuckled on the crop, "or we won't just start it early, I'll keep bringing them in until I get tired of watching you cry. I can think of at least two other fellas who would be willing to help. Hell, I could probably even make our little Dumpling come in and help with a little inducement. I don't know when that poor little bastard got laid last, but I'd love to watch him get over some of his prissiness."

Her nostrils flared with her ragged breath, elbows coming together in front of her face to block the sight of it twisting, the first full crack in her composure. The Soldier wanted to lick her face, to pry her arms open and taste the first spill of tears and the blood on her face, to hear her wail in hopeless terror.

"I see that, Rosie-girl. Don't like the idea? Don't tempt me." He tapped the inside of her thigh with the loop of the crop, hands trembling with desire. "A little wider now."

Her knees were shaking. She opened them another inch and stopped.

"No, Sugar," the Soldier said, licking his lips, "plant your heels on either side of the mattress."

She slowly levered her legs apart, twitching with strain.

"There we are," the Soldier said. "Look at that"—he pointed, drawing the Spy's attention to the seam between her thighs—"they're all tucked on the inside. Fat outer lips, though."

The Spy leaned over. "That's kind of cute." He looked at the Cook's face, at the outrage and fear in it. "I take it back," he said for the pleasure of being insulting. "You'll do."

"Gee, thanks," she mumbled, unable to stop herself from responding.

The Spy reached out and slapped her, sending dizzying sparks across her vision. "Be polite," he said. "Say thank you like you've been taught manners. Like a lady."

The Soldier looked over at him in amusement. "You wanna make a lady out of this one?" He looked back at the rapid rise and fall of her chest. "Well, shit, why not? I'm still going to make a slut out of her, if there's anything left to make a slut out of, but she could use some manners." A smile crawled across his face. "Anything left after your time at RED that makes you blush there, Princess, other than a gang bang?"

A slow flush crossed her face and she parted her elbows to stare at him. He watched her jaw move, teeth grinding, her swollen lower lip rubbing against its mate and still parted like an overripe fruit. The crop whistled and she shouted, legs curled up around the swelling stripe on the inside of her thigh.

"Hurts, don't it," the Soldier said. "All that sensitive skin. Now put your legs down and give me the count."

She eased her legs down, face white with rage, and slurred the word three.

 _Guess she's not counting all of them_ , he thought, debating punishing that as well and deciding not to bother. "Didn't hear you, Princess." The crop descended again. "Loud and proud, Cupcake, or we'll have to get more friends."

"Four," she howled.

"That's a good girl." The crop wrapped around the inside of her thigh, high on her leg, and her breath whinnied out of her with a whine.

"Five," she spat, straining to keep her voice from cracking.

The crop whistled down again, wrapping her knee, and her mouth opened in a soundless gasp.

"You can do a fair amount of joint damage like this," the Soldier said, conversationally. "It ain't the only way, but it's got a certain charm. What's the count?"

She took a heavy breath, sweat rolling down her face and sides, stinging in the cuts of the previous day's knife practice and in the burst skin of her mouth. "Six."

The crop descended against the tender skin on the inside of her calf and she shook violently, convulsively. "Seven," she croaked.

"Care to guess the number I'll stop at," the Soldier said. "Go on, guess."

"Don't know," she gasped.

"Guess we'll find out," he said, and the crop cut the air, landing with a sharp crack on the inside of her thigh.

"Eight," she bleated, the first sob shaking her shoulders.

"Look at that," the Soldier said, tracing the loop on the crop up the inside of her thigh. "Gotta love pale skin for this—it's like painting them."

The Spy stood, leaning over the bed, to look at the rising stripes. "Let me have a lick," he said, gesturing for the crop.

The Soldier handed it to him and stepped back from the bed. "One. And Honey," he said, leaning over to see the muscles in her face straining against tears, "don't count this one."

The Spy shook the crop in the air, measuring its spring, and smiled. "Just the one? Hardly seems fair."

"Don't worry," the Soldier replied, watching her face, "you'll get more in later."

The Spy spread the fingers of his free hand across the print of her boot on his ribs and then traced the shape on her ribs. "Right about there, I think." When he brought the crop down, he used his weight with the strength of his arms. She felt rather than heard a crack that drove the breath from her lungs.

"Not so hard," the Soldier said, irritated. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get leather gear delivered out here? If you break it, you're going to replace it."

The Cook lay gasping like a landed fish, her shallow breaths punctuated by a sharp, stabbing pain.

"You okay there, Honey? He didn't break anything, did he?"

She kept gasping, her face slowly blushing from red to purple.

"Well, shit, I think you might have broken a rib." The Soldier poked her side, watching it stain. "That ends this kind of fun, but I want to keep the bruises, so we won't call the Doc." He strode over to his foot locker and pulled out a long sport bandage. "You broke her, so you wrap her, and we'll just play with the other end some." He threw the bandage at the Spy. "Wrap."

"It's a start," the Spy said and leaned over the Cook, whose lungs had finally unknotted enough to allow breath. "Come up a little." With ruthless efficiency, he wrapped her torso.

"Well, Sugar," the Soldier said. "We'll have to be a little careful how we bend you so we don't punch a hole in your lung before we're done here, but we can adjust."

She surprised herself by laughing, a dry, acidic little noise somewhere between gagging and gasping, each intake of breath stabbing her anew. _They're going to fucking kill me before they rape me_ , she thought, contempt edging out her fear. _They can't even contain themselves enough not to kill me first_.

 _Good. Kill me._


	3. Whether You Like It or Not

The BLU Soldier's eyebrows shot up, looking at the bruised figure handcuffed to the headboard of his bed. Long purpling streaks across her thighs and torso spoke of his work of the last hours, coloring beautifully. The bandage around her broken ribs would hold, he thought, at least for awhile. More troubling was the degree to which, despite a split lip, a swollen jaw, and the beating he'd just administered, she was still resisting, laughing. This was not what he had prepared for, what he'd been fantasizing about since he'd caught the RED Soldier trying to show her how to shoot.

 _If the battle can't be won by force_ , he thought, eyes narrowing in calculation, _it can be worn by attrition. They all can._

"Still got some fight in you," he said cheerily, turning on the charm. "Fantastic!" The Soldier took the crop off the bed and tucked it back into the foot locker, turning it in his hands to see if it had broken. To the Spy, he said, "you're damn lucky this has a fiberglass core. If it were bamboo, you'd have shattered it on her ribs."

The Spy shrugged. "It's not like I can't afford to replace it."

The glare the Soldier turned on him contained equal parts ire and disgust, but he didn't comment. When he turned back to the bed, he sighed—an incongruously satisfied sound, like a man sitting down to a favorite meal. "Now," he said, eyes hungrily devouring the battered woman in front of him, "the question is how to make you do a little more crying. I've always found shame works best."

The Soldier pulled a vibrator from the foot locker. "Normally, I'd do a little more coaxing, but if I bent you too far you may take the kind of injury that'll send you through respawn." He chuckled. "And they don't have respawn right now, so that may be a bit of a problem."

"How…" Her voice trailed off, hitching with her breath.

"We blew it to shit with a bomb on a timer a few hours ago. There ain't gonna be a cavalry until they can get that back up. It's going to take at least a few days, and while it's down, you're all mine." He switched the vibrator on, waiting for the horror to hit her face. He wasn't disappointed. Her face drained of color, greening under the florescent lights.

"Remember what I told you, Honey, in the cage? This is my favorite part, this right here. Because I can make you react, while your head screams about rape, while you cry and you hate yourself." The Soldier spread a hand over her thigh, pushing it down to the bed, and slowly lowered the vibrator, watching her face.

The Cook lashed out with her feet, twisting, then took a sobbing breath from the pinching pain in her ribs, joining the chorus from her battered head, the deep heated throb of her jaw, the sharp pain of her split lip and the various aches of her bruises.

He tightened his hand, digging his fingers into the bruised skin of her thigh, with a shiver. "Oh, you can try, Honey, but you're not going anywhere."

She kept twisting until he touched the vibrator to her, then froze out of disgust, horror, and the vain hope that she wouldn't be affected. As she started to flush, he chuckled. "There it is. Let me tell you what I'm seeing, Honey. I'm seeing that blush crawl down your body, watching your cunt plump up."

"But the look on your face—that look is my favorite thing. That horror at the way your body is a dumb fucking dog. It's going to sit up and howl soon, and we're going to get to see it. And after you howl for us, Sweetie, I'm going to fuck you and tell you how the BLU found me." He squeezed his fingers, laying a new line of bruises on her thigh in small spots. "And then you're going to howl again, and I'll pass you over to our friend here."

The Soldier looked over at the Spy. "Assuming you want some."

The Spy shivered, his pupils open. "Fuck, yes."

She bit her lip, teeth popping into the abused flesh easily, trying to distract herself as the BLU Soldier wriggled the vibrator slightly, looking for the minute changes in muscle tension that would tell him where she liked it best. Sweat trickled down her face, the effort of holding herself still, of containing the involuntary rush of pleasure that the vibrator sent through her. She took a deep breath for the stabbing, pinching pain of it, trying to clear her head.

"Swear for me now, Sugar. Give me that fire." The Soldier squeezed her thigh again. "I can see how close you are. Spit a little acid at me before you show us how slutty you can be."

She tried to think of something, anything but the warmth rising between her legs.

"Come on, you poisonous little bitch," he gloated, leaning in to watch the heat in her face. "Let it out."

She opened her eyes, staring at him, the haze gathering around the corners of her eyes. In her memory, the RED Spy whispered in her ear. _Desire is a weapon._ The warmth trembled, inching up her spine, an irresistible pressure.

The Cook let the orgasm break over her loudly, screaming like one of the damned, her dry, hot eyes on the Soldier's face. Brief surprise flew over his face, and anger followed it— _fine, Sugar_ , he thought. _Want to be hard to break in? I can do hard to break in_. "No tears, there Rosie-girl? I'll just have to do better." He pulled the vibrator from her and switched it off.

"Here, hold this." The Soldier handed the vibrator to the Spy. Keeping her eye contact, he stripped, dog tags jingling as they were released from his tank top. She watched the thick muscles roll in his arms and back as he stripped, still dry-eyed and dull in terror and hatred.

"Kept your tags," she whispered.

"Yeah, Honey, I kept 'em. I learned too much to resent the Marines. They're my little souvenir." He lifted a foot and stepped out of one boot and then the other. The Soldier turned to the Spy. "Speaking of souvenirs, what do you suppose I should take with me?"

The Spy pointed to one of the Soldier's tattoos. "Got ink and a needle? You could always tattoo 'property of' on her or the company logo."

The Soldier's eyes lit up. "I can do you one better, hang on."

Naked in the comfort of knowing himself to be the best predator in the room, the Soldier walked around the bed to rummage in his foot locker, emerging with a long, wickedly pointed lance and two hoops. "I got this awhile back to use on that short little fuck, but I didn't get to it."

A violent tremor shook the Cook's swollen hands, bouncing them like numb balloons against her wrists.

"You going to sterilize that first?" The Spy rolled the still-hot vibrator from hand to hand, idly amusing himself.

"Nah," the Soldier said. "I'm going to have to take a medigun to her soon because you broke her ribs, and it'll keep infection from setting in."

He swung a knee over the Cook's chest, the pressure choking her before he lifted a leg, cocking it so that he could put his weight on a knee and his foot. "Now, you're going to want to be still for this, Sugar. I actually do know what I'm doing, and you don't want me to hit the wrong area. You'll go numb permanently, since there's no respawn."

The first prickle of tears made her eyes close.

"There it is," the Soldier said. "Well, there's about to be more of that. Take a breath, Sugar, and hold it."

She took a single, choked breath before the lance popped through the skin under her nipple. The grinding, meaty pain dizzied her, joining the agony screaming through her body—the pain of the lance dwarfed them all with the same visceral need to get a foreign object out of her body.

The Soldier stopped halfway through, watching her face. "I'm only halfway done with one, Honey. I have to realign, and I want to see you cry." He jiggled the lance, and the first tear trickled down her cheek. "There we are," he said, and forced the lance through with a grinding pop and a fat droplet of blood from both sides, rolling down the breast below it.

The Soldier threaded the first earring through the hole. "Now let's do the other one." He looked up at the Spy. "I always liked the hoops because they make nice little handles. You can thread a little chain through them, or a bit of leather, and lead them around."

He twisted her unpierced nipple, making it hard again, and set the lance lightly against it. "You ready, Sugar, for round two? Take a breath and hold it."

The Soldier made it slower that time, easing forward in millimeters, time stretching into an endless, burning period that ended in a pop and the feeling of something punching out of her skin. The Soldier knee-walked down her body, ending up between her legs. "Pretty sight, ain't it?"

The Spy smiled and twirled the vibrator between two fingers. "Getting better by the moment."

The Soldier reached between her legs, finding the damning traces left by the vibrator and an involuntary response she had always hated. He lifted his fingers, slick and shining in the light. "I love female masochists. You can hurt the shit out of them and they just get wet. And they Stockholm so easily."

A whimper escaped her before she could stop it, and the Soldier's cock twitched. "And that noise, that little hurty noise…" He trailed off and shivered. "You're going to make it again."

He picked her hips up, tilting them. "Can't bend your legs too much or you'll suffocate, so you'll just have to spread them." Using his hand, he slid himself into her and balanced on his hands.

Her face twisted again, eyes screwing shut. "I'm going to kill you," she whispered. "Kill you."

"No, you're not," he said. "But you're going to wish you were dead."

"Too late," she whispered, and he laughed, a wild sound that had everything she could imagine of cruelty and triumph in it.

The Soldier moved slowly, watching her face, an excruciatingly long push-up that rubbed him hard against her g spot. She glared up at him, hating the slow spray of shocks spilling up her spine in the first alchemy that changed pain into something else. The hungry look on his face— _I'm never going to be clean again_ , she thought, something screaming and screaming and screaming behind her eyes, before she cut the thought off with another stabbing, deep breath.

His face started to soften as he moved, transported by the pleasure of her pain and the knowledge that he had damaged her— _truly and deeply_ , he thought, looking at her pale face. _Until you can never forget me and what I taught you about yourself_.

She squeezed him experimentally at that, searching for something, anything to keep his face softening, to get it over with. She was rewarded by the goose flesh that swept down his body.

He moaned, then looked at her, hate and a terrible pleasure burning on his face, blush sweeping up it like a flag. "Getting into it, Honey, or just talented? By all means, flex."

The Cook stopped herself from finishing the gag that shook her, but only by mustering what was left of her will.

Every slow push up sent more sparks rushing through her. She let her mind wander, trying to put off the sensation pooling between her legs—how to make sushi, how to field dress a deer, what it was like to duck hunt, trying to recall her last hunt with her father before puberty turned her into his enemy.

"Oh no," the Soldier panted, seeing the distance in her eyes, "you're not getting away from this." He turned to the Spy. "I'm going to move a little. Can you get that thing between the two of us?"

She bit her lip and tried to concentrate on the necessary steps to make a beef wellington, on how to make the pastry by hand, on the comparative merits of an egg wash or butter on the pastry.

The Soldier picked her hips up, sitting back on his knees, and scooted forward slightly. "There, try that."

The Spy switched the vibrator on and turned the chair so he could lean forward. The vibrator descended again and she twitched, the recipes flying from her mind.

"There we are," said the Soldier. "She was starting to dry out a little. Not anymore."

The heat gathered between her legs again, an involuntary flutter around the Soldier making him moan, looking down at her averted eyes, at the pale terror on her face. "Much better," he said. "Try to wander off. Go ahead, Cupcake. Try to think about something else."

A weapon. She had to make a weapon out of this, to do something. From her memory, the RED Spy spoke again. _Desire is best as a weapon, Vipere, when only one person is drowning._

She took a single short breath and curled her legs up around him, letting the warmth rushing through her out in a long, choked moan.

Surprised again, the Soldier stopped, irritation on his face. "I was expecting more fight than that."

The Spy shrugged. "We are using a vibrator. Kind of hard to resist."

 _All right_ , the Soldier thought, _let's see how much resolve you have_. "Well shit, Honey, take me to the rodeo." He sat back slightly, so that he could watch her. _Let's see how far you'll take this._

She fucked herself on him, rhythm clumsy and fast, feeling him start to throb, letting her mouth hang open, moaning loudly, hoarsely, sloppy, welcoming the jolting pain of movement so that it could drive the thoughts from her head, the part of her that felt like it was fracturing.

The Soldier recovered from his surprise quickly, and dug his fingers into her hips, helping her along and starting to sweat. "Shit, come on, Honey."

Every jolt sent pain through her ribs, every breath bringing her closer to that shining moment where it all became pleasure. She kept her eyes open, watching his face start to become tense again, watching the beads of sweat roll down his chest. He started to grunt with every stroke, fingers tense, spine starting to shake. Her eyes started to try to roll, and she stopped them, still watching while her body spasmed around his and he gave one last grunt, throbbing in her in a liquid warmth.

"I can't say," the Soldier panted, "that I'm not a little disappointed. But that was a good ride, and I'll get another before long."

The Spy turned the vibrator off and pulled it away, putting it on the desk away from his clothing. The Soldier pulled himself out of her with a wet sound, then stumbled off the bed. "Your turn," he said to the Spy.

"I'm not dicking around with the vibrator. She won't need it anyway," the Spy said. "Part of the fun of sloppy seconds."

He laid his pants neatly over the chair with his coat and shirt, then piled his boxers on them. "If you use the chair, don't knock my shit off it."

The Soldier laughed breathlessly and collapsed into the chair, elbows on his knees. "You're such a prissy motherfucker sometimes," he panted. "Fine, I'll put your shit on my desk, see? No knocking anything off. Now get on with it."

Something small and sardonic in her mind looked at the elaborate courtesy between them, and laughed hysterically, watching them maneuver around each other like sharks passing in the water.

The Spy ran his fingers through his hair, raking it behind his ears, and smiled down at the Cook. "Gonna be a whore for me, too? Gonna"—he slid his fingers into her easily—"make noise and fuck me like the little slut you are?"

She simply looked at him, resignation and exhaustion graying her features. The Spy clicked his tongue, scissoring his fingers and waiting for a response. Finding the right spot, he pressed it and her legs twitched. "There we are," he said. "Found it."

He slid himself into her and stayed still, watching her face as she turned it to the wall. "I'll give vibrators this," the Spy said. "They do keep 'em tight."

"So," he said as he started to move, "you got any more of that in you?"

In response, she tightened her legs again, letting herself fuck him. Her eyes prickled, and she tried to remember the layout of the last restaurant she'd worked in—a short entryway leading to tables, primary colors, tables along the wall—her thoughts were interrupted.

The Spy pulled one of the small aching rings, the restaurant dissolving, and bringing her attention back to the mechanical movement of her hips and turning her head toward him. "Make some noise," he said, displeasure clear in his voice. "Make noise now, because if you don't, I'll pull this out and you'll have to lay there, bleeding, until I'm done."

She let her mouth hang open and started a hoarse panting.

"Good girl." He kept the ring between two fingers, rolling his hips to encourage her. She kept moving, staring at him with wet eyes and an endless hate broiling under her face, noise spilling from her lips.

He smirked at her. "That's right. Keep making those whore-y little noises for me, and don't think I don't know that I'm making you make them. I don't care if you like it. I care if you obey."

She winced, a sudden surge of arousal making her moans real. Above her, the Spy took a sharp breath, the pleasure of victory as visceral as the pleasure of making her react. "Was it being called a whore or obeying, I wonder," he panted. "Or maybe it's just that I'm forcing you. Good news. I don't give a shit if the lube is his come, blood, tears, or you. I'm going to fuck you with the ring between my fingers until I'm done, looking at your bruised, cut up, broken body. I'm going to pull it because it hurts you, because it makes you cry. And when I'm done, I'm going to describe this to the next RED motherfucker I catch so they know what I did to you."

Her eyes closed, panic and the desire to die clawing through her arousal. The Spy tugged the ring between his fingers and she made a sad, whimpering moan. He laughed and pulled it so that every stroke jolted it, stretching the skin of her nipple.

"Did they ask you for permission? Did they act like your opinion mattered? Did they act like your pleasure mattered?" The Spy grunted. "We won't make that mistake, here."

She could feel him starting to throb inside her.

"Beg me," he panted, a droplet of sweat falling on her from his face. "Beg me and hope it makes this faster."

When she stayed silent, he pulled savagely at the ring and she screamed. "Please!"

"More," the Soldier said and the Spy echoed him.

"Please, oh god please please please please." Her voice was ragged, the words pouring out of her.

"More," the Soldier said, his voice tight.

"Please, god fuck please goddamn it please." There was a place, she discovered—a thoughtless place behind pain and shame, and emptiness that let her body move and make noise, babble and obey without her, and she welcomed it.

The Spy wrenched the ring between his fingers one last time, body throbbing in hers, and she started to sob, half in the bed with him and half in that numb place. He pulled himself out of her.

"You were right," he panted. "Masochist. And a pain slut to boot. Helen really outdid herself."

She put her elbows together to hide her face.

The Soldier gave a short laugh. "Well shit. Next time I'll know not to bother with the niceties. Did you care, or can we put her in the cage now?"

The Spy stood up and stretched. "You keep the collar in here?"

"I ordered a new one, yeah. Hang on."

The Soldier padded over to his foot locker and emerged with a thick leather band. He plopped down on the bed beside her, jarring her ribs with a flash of white hot pain. "Drop your elbows," he said, "or I'll pry them open."

She took a breath and opened them. He looked down at her swollen eyes and lips and smiled. "Head up, Sugar." He flicked the remains of her braid out of the way and threaded the collar behind her neck, turning it to close the buckle.

"Hey, toss me that padlock in the top drawer, would you?"

The Spy opened the top drawer and tossed the Soldier a heavy padlock, which he closed on the buckle. He turned it, pulling her skin and hair, to let the cold padlock rest behind her neck and a single, heavy ring rest in the hollow between the points of her collarbone.

"Okay, Sugar," the Soldier said, "here's the deal. If you fuck with the collar, I'm going to tie you ass up in the living room and leave you there 24 hours to see what happens. We'll train a camera on you so I have something to watch later." He paused, waiting for her reaction and was not disappointed. "I'm going to unlock the cuffs now, and we're going to show your bruised ass around the base. They won't touch you without my permission, but I want you to see what could happen if you misbehave."

The Spy handed the Soldier the handcuff keys and he unlocked her wrists. Her numb hands fell around her head and he pulled her to sitting with them.

"Up now." He pulled his fingers through her hair, ending the last of her braid. "Nice hair. Makes a good handle, and it's a pretty color."

The Soldier stood up and pulled her to standing. As her feet took weight, the bruises on the inside of her legs started to complain. She shifted her knees apart, responding to the pain.

"That, Cupcake," he said, "is why the inside of the thighs is so much fun to hit. Can't get your knees together without it hurting the shit out of you. You stand right there."

The Soldier and the Spy took turns dressing, and the Soldier hooked a finger through the ring on the front of the collar. "Let's go for a walk."


	4. Just Not Evil

The Cook stumbled after him as he walked, dragging her by the ring on her collar, the dull fleshy slap of her feet on the floor echoing around them. The Soldier paused, looking down at her, and laughed at the comedy of it—her staggering, coltish and awkward, behind him. She looked up at the sound, eyes narrowing, smoldering with hate and the desire to be once more behind the rifle. He moved his arm back and forth for the pleasure of watching her reeling after it, watching her try and fail to maintain a glare as she fought for balance.

"Sugar," the Soldier said, voice still quaking with laughter, "half the reason you're here is because you seem to think you can fight. Keep eyeballing me like you'd like to be holding a rifle. It just makes this more fun for me."

She blinked, doubt cutting across her face. He yanked the ring on the collar and kept walking, choking her as she turned to run after him. Pushing through the door to the living room, the Soldier found the BLU Heavy, Pyro, Scout, Sniper, and Demo playing poker. They turned at the sound of the door, wary and feral in their tension, to see the familiar face of the Soldier and the smaller figure beside him, spill of red hair livid as the blood of her swollen lip. She couldn't see their faces, but she could feel her skin crawl under their gaze.

"This," the Soldier announced, giving the ring and her head a shake, "is today's toy. RED's respawn is going to be down for awhile, so I'd imagine we're going to have at least a few days of fun and games together. If she doesn't behave, I'm going to tie her ass up in here. If you catch her alone outside of the kitchen, she's yours. If you see her tied up in here, she's yours. If I get annoyed, she's yours."

He pulled the ring, stretching her up on her tiptoes to peep over his wrist at the blobby shapes of men around a distant table. "Hell, if you think of any fun games, she's yours. Just ask first." The Soldier pulled the ring in a circle to get her to turn around, balancing on the tips of her toes and clinging to his wrist for balance— _he's presenting me_ , she thought, _like I'm a fucking object_.

The Cook flinched and stared through the far wall, listening to the silence behind her.

After a few seconds, someone spoke. "What's the policy on bleeding her?" She took a short, sharp breath— _I'm going to figure out which one you are_ , she thought, _and I will get even_.

The Soldier shrugged. "Just don't kill her. She's in their respawn, not ours. She is pretty responsive to pain, though she tries to deny it, so I can see the attraction."

The voice spoke again. "Looks like you about half killed her already."

"Yeah, be a little careful of the ribs. I'll fix that tomorrow morning, but we're in the breaking in stage of this little game, and it won't kill the bitch to be uncomfortable." He tweaked a nipple ring with his free hand and she gasped, a humiliated flush spreading across her face. The Spy, standing behind the Soldier, grinned at her before walking around them both to flop on the couch.

There was another short silence.

"How about," the Heavy said, his voice grim, "the winner gets to borrow her for awhile. Want me to deal you in?"

The Soldier stopped for a moment, considering it, then shrugged again. "I'm done with her for the night, but I'll stick around for the hand-off." He pulled her backward, stumbling, toward the table. She squeaked and tried to turn, but he kept his hand behind him, dragging her backward past the table and eyes of the predators at it. The Soldier sat down, tugging the ring on the collar until she sat on the cold floor by his untied boots.

"While you're down there," he said, "go ahead and clean my boots with your tongue." He let go of the ring. She tensed to flee, and he looked down at her, cruelty a light in his face and vulpine half-smile. "I was thinking about tying you over this table if you misbehave. One leg there"—he pointed at the wooden leg nearest her—"and the other over there. Of course, we'll have to put a diaper on you to keep you from fucking up the poker table, but it can be done."

She lowered her trembling face to his boot and licked the dull leather, a greasy patina clinging to her mouth.

"I won't make you swallow it, but keep yourself busy or I'll make you busy." The Soldier turned back to the table. "Don't let me stop you, fellas. Who's winning so far?"

The Heavy cleared his throat, looking down at the vulnerable line of her spine and the ass presented to him as she pressed her tongue to the Soldier's boot. "I am."

The Soldier laughed, following the line of his vision. "I thought you said you didn't like sharing."

"I never said I was a eunuch," the Heavy replied, anger heating his voice, unable to pry his eyes from the pink edge of lips peeking out from between the heavy globes of her ass. "I just don't like you and your buddy."

The Spy snorted and walked out, hands in the air.

By the end of several hands, it was clear that the Heavy was going to clean everyone out, and they folded, lingering at the table.

"She's all yours," the Soldier said. "Just don't kill her. Or do, but clean up your own messes." With a nudge of his boot on her shoulder, he sent her sprawling across the Heavy's feet and left the room.

The Heavy caught her easily, hands spread behind her back and looking down at the body in his hands. She flinched away from him, eyeing him from the tangled, sweaty mass of her hair.

The Pyro looked at them both, calloused fingers drumming on the table. "Want an audience?"

 _It was you_ , she thought, glaring at the brunette in the stained white t shirt. _You asked about bleeding me. Fella, I don't know how, but I'm going to fuck you up_.

"No," the Heavy said vehemently, tearing his eyes from her breasts with effort and glaring at the Pyro. "And she's taking a shower first, because she stinks like Spy and Soldier." The Heavy hooked a finger through the ring and stood up, towering over the Cook and dragging her up with him. "Come on."

After he cleared the living room door, he took smaller steps, letting her keep pace without running, and led her to his room. The Heavy let go of the ring and gently shooed her into his room, then closed and locked the door. The Cook stood in the middle of the room, hugging herself gently and swaying, watching him.

The Heavy looked her up and down—split lip, bruised jaw, covered in the long thin bruises the Soldier left on anybody he could, old knife wounds healing on her forearms, and finally at the beige bandage around her sides—the accounting heated his sullen rage to boiling. The look she gave him, the ferocious anger and the terrible fear, only added to it. "They really fucked you up, didn't they," he whispered.

He gave himself a minute, breathing heavily, before he realized that she couldn't tell the difference between his rage and lust, and was trying to prepare to be abused again. It deflated him instantly. "Tell you what," he said softly. "You and I both know why you won't roam the halls without me, and you really need to get patched up. I'm going to lock the door behind me and borrow the medigun." _If you've met the Medic_ , he thought, _you know why this is a big fucking favor and maybe a little bit about how much this fucking bothers me_.

The Heavy continued. "You should take a shower. It might make you feel better, and I promise you no one is coming in this room shy of that asshole and his buddy."

She stood, swaying and staring at him, muscles shrieking with tension.

"Trust me, you're going to want a shower. Go on." The Heavy pulled a key ring from his pocket, and let himself out of the room quietly, locking the door behind him.

The Cook stood staring at the door after he left, paralyzed by the fear she finally had time to feel and the echoes of what she had just endured, her thoughts fragmented and dribbling through her head. The face of the Soldier. The rings in her nipples. The Spy. The feel of her ribs breaking. Panic burned a hole in her head, leaving static.

When the Heavy came back, she was still standing there, frozen. He sighed and flicked the gun on. The ecstatic warmth of the gun woke her up, along with the sensation of bone fragments sliding back into place in her rib cage. The angry throb of her nipples disappeared, the slices on her forearms and split lip closing, the bruises on her body fading back into her skin. She took her first deep breath and he flicked the gun off.

"I was serious," he said, "about that shower."

She was still staring at him, breathing heavily.

He sighed— _girlie_ , he thought, _if I have to threaten I will_. "Of course," he said, letting the heat he was desperately trying to ignore roughen his voice, "I need one, too, so if you don't get in there, I'll get in there with you. No point in wasting the hot water."

She hissed, instantly crouching like a pit fighter getting ready to spring, fingers hooked.

"Come on," he said, leaning the medigun against the door. "Let's go get them off you."

When he reached for the collar, she tried to bite him, rage and the willingness to die driving all thoughts from her head. He jumped backward, hands up, just avoiding her hooked fingers.

"Girlie, really, I am not trying to rape you. I genuinely want you to take a shower."

She stayed staring at him, eyes wild, lips curled back.

His shoulders sagged and took two steps back to sit on the edge of the bed. "I can't let you out right now. They're all still awake. I know we're stuck in here, but it doesn't have to be awful. I shouldn't have made the crack about getting in there with you. The shower is all yours if you want it."

He could see her start to think again, blinking, coming back out of it like a sleeper. After a moment, she looked at him, distrust and the urge for violence making her stare flat. "You let them take me. How the fuck do I know you aren't just like them?"

The Heavy winced, a slow flush burning up his cheeks. "I suppose I could say that if I were, I'd probably be at it already, but that doesn't help." He gave her a sad, tired smile. "Honestly, what I'd really like to do is take a shower and sleep, but I figured I'd be better company than some of the rest of those fucks."

"I saw," she growled, "the way you were looking at me."

The flush made him pink from forehead to the collar of his shirt and he closed his eyes. "I'm … it's been awhile. The good news is that if you'll take a shower, I'll lend you a shirt and a pair of boxers. It'll probably be good as a dress on you."

The Cook thought about it—crossing the feet between them and popping his eyeballs like a pair of grapes, about maiming him, and realized she was shivering on the brink of that strange mixture of lust and violence. She took a step back, putting her hands behind her back, skin crawling.

He stayed sitting there, eyes closed, for some time before opening them and giving her a sad smile. His eyes, the blue gray of a puddle after the rain, were a million years old. "I can guess," he said quietly, "what you're thinking. Can't blame you, I can only give you my word."

They stared at each other. She took a breath and backed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. The Heavy stayed on the bed, staring at the door, fingers digging into the edge of his mattress. When the shower cut on, he dug through his chest of drawers, bringing out a faded blue-green flannel shirt and a pair of white cotton boxers. He laid them on the desk chair and dragged it near the bathroom door, then went back to the bed to wait.

She came out after twenty minutes, wrapped and swimming in his towel. Heat flashed in him at the sight of her, wet and clean, hair hanging down her back, pink from the water. He turned his head, wrenching his eyes away, and went back to contemplating the door while she snatched the flannel and boxers and darted back into the bathroom. When she came back out again, he realized he was right—his comfortably loose flannel might as well have been a dress. She folded up the sleeves and tucked her wet hair behind her ear, nervous.

"I'm going to have to get up to go in the bathroom at some point," he said, back to contemplating the door. "How do you want to handle that?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm more worried about who gets the bed."

He froze, electricity crackling in his nerves—she could see it on him, desire and a sense of shame that kept him sitting, stock still, on the bed. He licked his lips.

"I'd prefer," he said softly, "not to sleep on the floor. I have back problems, and a night on the concrete down there is going to fuck me up badly tomorrow. But I'm not a rapist. You can have the outside, and I will do my best to stay facing the wall all night."

He could feel the disbelief, corrosive and hot, radiating from her. The Heavy sighed. "I'll just sleep on the floor then."

"Would you really," she asked. "Would you really sleep on the freezing cold floor?"

"Not happily."

She sighed that time. "Me either. But I'm sleeping knife in hand."

"Top drawer."

He got up, moving slowly for the bathroom door. When it closed, she opened the top drawer of his chest of drawers, finding a variety of edged weapons. The Cook looked around. A truly huge gun lay on his desk in parts, a pair of spiked knuckles next to them. A shotgun leaned against the wall by the bed, hidden between bed and the nightstand next to it. Oil, rags, and a long metal brush sat on the desk next to the parts of the huge gun. He'd left her in there to pick her own weapon and gone to the bathroom— _surely_ , she thought, _he knows I've shot him a few times on the field_. _Surely he knows I can hurt him._

When he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, towel tucked low around his hips, she was sitting on the bed. From the hilt sticking out beside her knee, she'd picked one of his favorite knives, an eight inch leaf-shaped blade he'd picked up at a gun show—and sat nervously, waiting for him. He crossed the room with the same exaggeratedly slow pace, and pulled a clean pair of boxers and BDUs from the drawers.

She watched him walk back to the bathroom, the thick slabs of muscle in his back twitching as he turned it to her, letting her decide again whether or not she would use the knife she'd selected.

He came out clean-shaven, BDUs and boxers on. "Well," he said. "I… I would like to come over to the bed. Can I?"

The Cook gestured and he walked over, muscles jumping under his skin with tension.

"You're really worried about getting stabbed, aren't you," she said.

"Girlie, you and I both know that you could probably make me really miserable with that thing, and considering the reception around here, I'm not sure I could blame you for trying." He sat on the edge of the California King mattress, scooted as far away from her as he could. "I'd like it if you didn't on the bed, though. This isn't standard issue and I practically had to kill a man to get it delivered."

At that, she laughed, at few of the tense lines on her face dissolving— _if all you have is a hammer_ , she thought, _everything is a nail_. _If all you've got is violence, everything is violent._ "Practically or did you actually threaten?"

He clung to her laughter like a life-line. With an exaggerated aw-shucks expression, he said, "the delivery company may have been informed of a potential disaster if they didn't make someone drive it up here."

"Disaster?"

"Me on my day off."

She chuckled quietly at his response, but the Heavy could still see the shadow in her eyes and the fragility around them. "Are you," he said softly, "planning to stab me tonight?"

"I don't know," she said, equally soft. "What were you planning to do when we lay down?"

"Be nervous," he said, face pleading. "I might… I'm going to try not to roll over or touch you, but I might in my sleep. It won't be… I'm not trying to make you do anything, I just thrash around in my sleep."

 _Maybe_ , she thought, _you're manipulative, or maybe you're just trying to prove that I can trust you. I can't know until we get into bed together. But you're trying very, very hard to make me comfortable_. "Why didn't you do anything," she finally asked, voice raw and small.

 _Guilt_ , she thought—he immediately sagged, eyes turning down to stare at his feet. When he spoke, his voice was exhausted. "I'm just not angry enough to deal with those two pricks over the long term, and they will make my life more miserable. I get tired of being pissed, tired of being constantly toe-to-toe with one of them on every issue. All I really want to do at the end of the day is take a load off. Those three get excited by the blood, excited by the pain, excited by the kill, come in at the end of the day and want to take it out on someone."

It was that response that changed her mind— _fifty odd years_ , she thought, _of dealing with that, and he's still trying to be decent_. She pointed at the wall. "Lay down over there."

He did and she contemplated him, the tension shivering in the muscles of his back. She put the knife on the nightstand and laid down with her back to him before sighing and rolling over. "Do you know," she complained, "how hard it is to sleep in a bed with someone without ever touching them?"

The Heavy stayed, frozen, while she snuggled herself into the rigid line of his back. "Am I allowed to roll over," he said, and she started laughing hysterically.

When he did roll over, he found her flat on her back, giggling. Confused, he asked. "Is it okay if I roll over? Look, I'm really trying here."

She laughed harder, great gouts of laughter that shook the mattress, and he watched her, body convulsing in his flannel and boxers. When she calmed, tears trickling from her eyes, he asked again. The Cook looked over at him. "It's your bed. Dunno, are you allowed to roll over in it?"

"You have," he said softly, ignoring the question, "a very nice smile."

She froze, looking at him, at the longing on his face as he looked at her. He sighed. "I'm sorry, really. And yes, it's my bed, but I still don't want to be an evil fucker in it." The Heavy propped himself up on an elbow, a worn smile on his face, and waited to be stabbed.

After a tense moment, she blinked, body relaxing back down into the bed, and rolled on her side to face him, considering his expression and the things in it. "I wasn't expecting you to be honest," she said.

He grinned wryly. "I wasn't expecting not to be perforated."

"But you were willing to be stabbed?"

The Heavy grimaced. "It's more that I felt bad for you and I thought you could use some time without having to deal with those assholes."

And for that, she kissed him on the cheek, hearing the breath leave him in a gust. His arms twitched once before he regained control of them.

"I wouldn't," he said, trailing off and clearing his throat before continuing. "I'm not made of stone. I don't know how long they've had RED cooped up, but we've been here for working on a year."

She kissed him on the mouth then, and he let her, tense in his passivity. "Why," he said when she drew back.

"Because it feels good," she replied softly. "Because I'd like to feel good, and it's hard to lay in bed all night trying not to touch someone."

She could see him thinking about it, thinking about whether or not she meant it, so she kissed him again for the thrill of it, to feel him starting to melt in the great, cold mass of his loneliness. He grunted, and she could feel his muscles twitching with the desire to touch, but he kept them to himself, all but for his mouth, working desperately against hers. When she slid forward to close the space between them, she could almost feel the thrill that sang in his nerves, the stuttering breath against her cheek. He very slowly and very firmly put his arms behind his back. When she broke the kiss, she asked. "Submissive?"

"Not even slightly," he said. "Just not evil."


	5. My Own Ethics

She could see it in him, desire and pleading, the long misery of loneliness and something more—exhaustion, like a weight sitting on his chest, and the hopeless desire to escape. He held himself steady there, waiting for her to say or do something, resigned and simply breathing in and out, hands held stiffly behind his back, the thick bulges of his shoulders in taut ridges. He had a particularly broad face, widest at the cheekbones and square at the jaw. His eyes peeped out from beneath the heavy ridges and a long scar curved around his jaw, passing in front of one of his ears. Looking closely, she spotted the tiny pit of a previously pierced ear. _Patience_ , she thought, returning to his eyes, _or resignation? Or just too damn tired to do anything but lay there and hope that they don't pick on you?_

The emotion was familiar: resignation and hope that the senseless, unpredictable violence would pass her by another day. She'd grown up with it. _Not_ , she added silently, _that the violence itself is the most horrible part. It's the malice, the constant acidic corrosion of yourself and what you know the world to be_.

The BLU Heavy sighed in frustration, looking at the woman in his bed, in his clothes, an intimacy neither of them elected to share entirely of their own will. He had the nagging sense that she was motivated by pity, much more than any other emotion, and supposed it should make him feel something—less manly or somehow less himself—but the last fifty years had worn him down to a surly shadow and he couldn't complain or even summon outrage at her pity. He felt like a shell, cynical and empty. _There's only so many hours in the day, Girlie_ , he thought. _I have to sleep at some point. Not for anybody am I going to cross those fuckers._

When she kissed him again, it was with the gentle grace of compassion, teasing him out of his shell with a kiss that offered herself up to him, conciliatory and kind. He left his hands behind his back and returned it with a gentleness he didn't feel, jaw aching in frustration. When her hands tugged at his arms, he pulled back, watching her warily. He let her have a hand, flinching, and watched her kiss it.

"Why," he finally said, still searching her face for the punch line.

"Control," she said quietly. "Until I can escape, I have very little. And as I said, because it feels good."

He growled, but didn't take his hand back, fingers soft despite the defensive ire in his voice. "Don't assume fucking me will give you control of me."

"I don't," she said softly, pressing another kiss to his palm. "I want control of me, not you."

She could see it hit him then, or perhaps he simply let her see a little of the riot in his body. The Cook smiled at him, wry and rueful. "Not even slightly, huh?"

"Let's just say," he said, voice tense, "that I didn't start out this way, but it grew on me." Watching her carefully, he pulled the other hand from behind him and reached out, expecting her to whip an arm around and stab him with the blade on the nightstand.

Instead, she reached for his face and cupped it, eyes searching for a characteristic flush and the self-control to use his lust well. "I couldn't tell you if I started out this way, but I can tell you where I ended up."

His hands reached for the buttons on the flannel and the breath caught in her throat. He froze, and she folded her hands over his with a gentle squeeze, despair and vulnerability inclining her toward him.

"I'm not really," he said, voice taut to snapping, "in a gentle mood. But I have enough self-control left to stop if asked. And if you're offering"—he shivered, eyes darkening—"I will take as much as you want to give me."

For a moment, she resented him for putting the control she was scrabbling for back in her fingers and demanding that she be a part of it. _I understand_ , she thought _, but to be able to reach out in that thoughtless mix of lust and violence, to simply not think…._ The BLU Soldier's face swam into her mind and she pushed it out, focusing instead on the radiant warmth of the body next to hers.

His fingers made short work of the buttons on the flannel, peeling the cloth aside to eye the rings in her nipples hungrily. "How about you stay on top," he said, breath short, "and I'll do my best to behave on bottom?"

She pulled his hands over the rings, and when he tugged them, sighed with the fine, sharp pain of it. The Heavy made a noise in the back of his throat, guttural and hungry, and she reached for the line of buttons on his BDUs. His eyes closed, and in some newly discovered corner of her mind, she took notes. His fingers closed on her breasts, kneading and pulling as she flicked the buttons open and reached inside the slit of his boxers.

The Cook froze again, unable to get her fingers around him.

He chuckled, exhaustion washing the joy out of it. "You still want to do this," he asked, a mixture of pleasure at her surprise and simple pride adding warmth to the question.

She looked down and smoothed the pants and boxers away from him. He wriggled to help her, kicking both off carelessly into the bed. With her hands, she made a crude measurement before speaking, native humor unable to resist the comment. "How, exactly, do you manage to get laid?"

The first genuine amusement entered his voice. "I usually get drunk and put it on the bar to flush out the size queens." As she stared into his face, he started to blush charmingly. "Well it's direct," he mumbled, defensive. "Wouldn't be fair if I didn't."

The Cook looked down again. "I'm willing to try," she finally said, breathless, "but I'm going to need a little preparation."

The Heavy cocked his head, asking a silent question, and reached for her breasts again. He kneaded and pulled them to send warmth through her, broken by the arcing pain of a tug on the rings. Watching her face, he leaned down, delicately pulling one into his mouth and sucking, first gently and then harder. She gasped for him then, fingers making a partial ring around him and tugging. He hissed around the nipple in his mouth and hooked his tongue through the ring, applying a combination of sharp pain to the wet, diffuse suction of his mouth. Her hands stopped moving and he finally laughed, the first genuine sound of pleasure she'd been able to get from him—joy at having broken her concentration.

She looked at him, at the need to be touched and to touch, to move someone, and made the decision to be moved, deliberately letting him see the rising warmth in her body. The expression on his face hovered somewhere between hunger and gratefulness. He pulled her up his body, rolling them both over slowly and seating her with her thighs on either side of his head. She looked down at the desire and helplessness in his face and stroked his forehead, soothing.

The Heavy smiled sweetly and sighed into her, his breath tickling her lips and thighs. When his eyes opened again, a wicked playfulness danced on his face and he sucked the skin of her lips into his mouth. His eyes darkened as he pulled and she moved above his head, rolling her hips with a long slow sigh. He reached up then, curling his fingers around her ass to hold her still, tongue moving restlessly—flicking and pulling, teasing with the flat and tip. She sighed, a gust that carried a groan buried inside it, curling her fingers around the headboard. The Heavy took a deep breath, the smell of sweet salt in his nose, teasing the noises from her until his chin and neck were wet and her knuckles were white against the wall. Only then, did he let go of her and let her slide down his body, reaching beneath herself to tease the tip of him into her. He cupped her hips, letting her set the pace, small advances and retreats that worked him into her by fractions, trembling with the desire to move.

By the time she was able to sit down on him, she was sweating and twitching.

The Heavy watched the pain on her face, struggling not to move, still struggling not to show her it when she opened her eyes. "Show me," she whispered, gaze hungrily roving his face to see what lay beneath his resolve.

He let her see it then, cruelty and loneliness, need and lust and the goad of his guilt at his own helplessness. She smiled at it, her hips undulating in painful circles, and moaned raggedly. His fingers dug into her hips, nails denting the thin skin over them and finally moving, watching the flush staining her breasts with a choked sound. She whimpered, eyes feverish and shimmering, body still pushing at his, straining to give him the room to move. The Cook reached for his chest, setting her nails in it like spurs, and he set his heels into the mattress, arching up into her with increasing force, watching it start to wash her away from herself. She went gratefully, back undulating and fingers digging in the skin of his chest. He rocked her harshly, responding to the small pain of her nails, his body in hers driving thought from her finally in a wash of pain. When she reached to touch her clit, he wrapped his fists around her wrists and held them in front of her, unable to touch herself. At that and the avid, greedy look on his face, her eyes rolled up in her head—submission in the pool between them and the churn of her hips, violent now as the wet sound of it rose around them.

At the first trill of her cunt around him, he bent up with the force of his orgasm, fingers digging blue bruises in a bracelet around her arms. He stayed sitting up, arms wrapped around her, and buried his face between her breasts. She felt his tears then, and curled her legs around him with a faint gasp as she shifted.

The Cook wrapped her arms around his head and rocked him there, crooning wordlessly as the first sobs shook him and he curled his legs, crossing them at the ankle. The sound of his grief was a raw, rasping groan, and he clung to her, shuddering with it.

When he had cried himself out and looked up, she smiled at him, a wry little thing. "I feel," she said quietly, "like I should be crying myself."

After a moment, she could see him shutting the grief off, too familiar with the ability to shut an ocean of grief into a small box. He cleared his throat, searching for the words. Finally, he said, "I'm glad you didn't. I would have felt obligated to comfort you."

"There's room," she said, kissing first one wet cheek and then another, "for more than one of us to grieve here."

And for that, he kissed her, mouth gentle. When he pulled back, she put her head on his shoulder, turning it toward his neck with a sigh. "Rock me for awhile," she whispered and he did, body in hers and moving slowly, inexorably on for the pleasure of simple touch and the pressure of it, until they were both exhausted enough to sleep.

Sleep, unfortunately, eluded them both. After a few hours of tossing and turning, the Heavy finally gave up. He sighed loudly, frustrated, and she looked up at him, the wry smile back on her lips. His arms tightened, voice full of resignation. "Maybe this is why you fucked me and I'm a fool, but I can't let you just go out there and have one of them break another of your ribs or whatever they get up to. I can't just watch it happen."

The newly discovered, cynical part of her mind fed her a line that she refused to voice, words borne of her observation of him and designed to exploit— _the Sniper was right_ , she thought. _They are contagious_. Instead, she stroked his face. "That's because you aren't a sociopath and a rapist."

His lips twisted, guilt shadowing his eyes. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd happily murder people all day. I just have standards. Or maybe ethics of a kind."

"I have my own ethics," she said. "And I can't leave knowing that they'll take it out on you. I also don't want you to think I'm using you. You don't deserve it."

"Can I ask you something?" He reached out and gently pulled her close to him, putting her head on his shoulder.

She waited.

"Do they act like this over there in RED? Do they treat you like this?" He took a breath, his voice rumbling in his chest. "Do they treat each other like this?"

"No."

She could feel his heart thrumming, could hear his lungs inflate. The arm around her slowly went limp. "Shit," he finally said. "Just… shit."

The Cook listened to the slow thump of his heart. "Your counterpart is very gay, but equally kind." She pushed his shoulder and he lay flat. She crawled onto his chest to listen, for the intimacy of touch and the brief sensation that she was small again.

"I tried to fuck men, or at least to enjoy being blown by them," he said. "I think we all have at one point or another. But I just can't do it."

"You don't have to. Now I get to ask you something," she said. "Why are you so nice? You're huge. You don't have to be nice to anyone."

He shrugged, rolling her back and forth on his chest. "I was a clumsy kid. I got tall early, and it was easy for me to hurt people. Even people I liked. I would try to play with them—you know, wrestle and stuff—but it was so easy to hurt them."

He cleared his throat, the sound thunderously loud in his chest. "And then I grew up and people were always afraid of me. Even when I was trying to be nice, or trying to get along, or just to get near them. It's one thing to scare them on purpose and something else to see some woman you'd like to talk to be afraid because they're worried you might hurt them, or cross the street, or just run away because you were too loud and too large."

He sighed, breath gusting through his lungs. "I get tired of being assumed to be a scary fuck. I have my moments, but day after day of people cringing everywhere I go… it gets old. So I overcompensate a bit when I can."

"I've seen you on the field," she said.

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because I mean to hurt them, and they mean to hurt me. It has a place, and that's the right place for it." He stroked her back gently. "How are you adjusting to all this? Did you come from war, or just violence, or some other circumstance?"

She wriggled slightly, moving the point of her chin away from his collarbone. "I've always been kind of isolated. And I have these violent urges sometimes." The Cook sighed. "And I'm just… I crave sex a lot. Fucked up, messy, excessive, sometimes even a little violent—there's this place in my head that gets so full and it feels like I can't empty it unless I fuck someone. The more stressed I am, the fuller it gets."

He made a contemplative hum. "Sex addict?"

"Oh, who the fuck knows." She shifted, irritably. "Someone is always telling me I'm sick one way or another."

The Heavy snorted. "Tell me about it. Well, we'll happily keep you around and fuck you until you can't take any more."

She pushed herself up, challenging glint in her eyes. "Never going to happen." Then her eyes wandered away from him. "Well, when it's my choice, anyway."

"Under different circumstances, I'd make you prove that. But we still have a problem."

"What," she said slowly, "are they actually into? I know they're both sadists. But what do they brag about?"

He made a face. "Ugh."

"I'm trying to figure out how to make myself unattractive to them, to use their desires against them."

The Heavy closed his eyes. "Christ. All right, fine. Far as I can tell, the more enthused you are, the less interested they are. I think the Soldier is at least okay with taking advantage of the willing, but the Spy seems like he really hates it when the woman wants any."

"Has the company ever had to clean up after him?"

The Heavy shivered. "I've had to help them get rid of what's left when the Doctor and the Spy have played together."

They both froze—she with the horrors in her imagination and he with memory. "How the hell are they not both in jail," she asked.

"They tend to pick up indigents. The Doc likes female runaways, younger the better. The Spy…." He trailed off. "I don't think he cares."

"You sure about that?"

"Well, yes and no. He'd like to get his hands on the RED Spy more often. He seems to think they're competing in some weirdly personal way. There's some bad blood there, and I don't know what it came from." He paused. "And, of course, they've been talking about you non-stop."

"I don't want to know." Her muscles tightened as she tried not to think about it.

"No, you really don't." He went back to stroking her back.

"Is there some way to permanently get rid of them both?"

The Heavy tensed. "I've spent five decades trying to answer that question. I have no idea. The only thing either of them are afraid of is the company. Well, maybe not afraid. But they won't piss the company off."

She bit her lip, pensive and he looked at it, distracted. "Do you think breaking RED's respawn would do it," she asked.

The Heavy shifted beneath her. "If the company finds out, maybe. The brothers don't like to miss out on their entertainment."

"I doubt RED is going to go on the field tomorrow if their respawn isn't fixed."

"That'll get someone's attention. I don't know how fast they'll be able to get someone down to fix it, but they'll probably send Miss Pauling and someone is going to end up in a hole."

"Permanently?"

"Maybe. Miss Pauling tends to like to get it over with, but I don't know if Blutarch wants to give the Soldier or Spy up. They are good at their jobs."

She snorted. "You'd think murdering each other all day would be enough to sublimate their urges."

"It's more specific for them," he said. "They have attachments. Sometimes, it's real specific what people attach to." His eyes slid over toward the huge gun on his desk.

"And that's yours?"

He blushed. "It's not exactly sexual. It's more… when I fire that gun, no one can stop me. I mean, they can stop me, but it doesn't feel like they can."

She poked him in the side, surprising a laugh from him. "I have my attachments. I get it."

"What're yours?"

"Not going to tell you." She stuck her tongue out at him.

His eyes fixed on the tip of her tongue, and she could feel him starting to get hard underneath her. "Oh," she said. "Been awhile for that, too?"

He grunted, eyes following her lips. "I'm never," he said slowly, "going to get any sleep tonight, am I?"

"Humph. I may tell you no."

He closed his eyes. "Okay. I'll start thinking about ice cubes."

"Mmmmm, you keep doing that," she said, sliding down carefully. "Let's see how long you can stay thinking about ice cubes."

"Goddamn it, they keep melting," his breath huffed out. "But you keep doing that. I'll keep trying."


	6. A Weakness to be Exploited

The Spy picked the Heavy's lock before dawn with homemade picks. A hobby more than any occupational necessity, it nevertheless provided him with a valuable tool for his other hobbies. The Cook was asleep atop the Heavy, who had thrown his arm around her in the night. Her face was buried in the tangled mop of her hair, which trailed off the Heavy's chest, the padlock sticking out of it incongruously large and shiny. The room stank of sex, and the two were nude, intertwined as if having fallen asleep mid-act, her legs on the outside of his and arms laying loosely around him. The bandage was gone, the Spy noticed with disapproval, and the fact that even in sleep the Heavy was cuddling the girl meant the stupid man had formed at least a slight attachment to her. He looked down. The medigun sat in a tangle next to the door—not a small attachment then, if he was willing to brave the Medic to heal her.

When he cleared his throat, the Heavy opened a bloodshot eye, unsurprised to find the Spy in his room. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Time's up." The Spy opened his hand face up and gestured. "Give her back."

"What if I don't want to?" The Heavy's arm tightened, startling a sleepy mumble from the Cook.

The Spy smiled at him, an expression with far too many teeth to be a sign of happiness. "She'll be gone in a few days. You'll still be here, decade after decade, with us." He let his eyes drift down the line of the Heavy's body. "And no man is too big to learn how to beg."

The Heavy stared at him, eyebrows drawing together into a tense line. "And no man is too sneaky to get shot."

The Spy's lip curled. "Are you under the impression that I'd wait for you to find me? A little addition to your food"—he made a sprinkling motion with his open hand—"and I promise you'll be as compliant as any bitch."

The Heavy's fingers spasmed on the Cook, and he slowly loosened his arm.

"Be glad," the Spy said, "that it isn't you."

The Heavy's eyes were hot and dry, and his teeth ground together as the Spy reached over and grabbed the padlock on the back of the Cook's collar. The Spy dragged her out of bed with a thump and she squawked before realizing where she was, then sighed angrily, looking up the line of his sweatpants and bare chest to his face.

"Good morning," the Spy said pleasantly. "Did you have a nice night?"

"Fuck you," she said.

His hand whipped back and he slapped her, knocking her head sideways and cutting her cheek against her teeth. "The problem," said the Spy to the Heavy, "with treating them nicely is that they start to get ideas. You just had to fix her up and treat her nicely. Now I'm going to have to beat her again, just to get the point across."

"You don't," the Spy said wryly, "do her any favors by being kind to her. And she doesn't like it anyway."

He looked down, tugging the lock in his hand. "Do you?"

"Does it matter what I say," she asked, cringing and waiting for him to hit her again.

The Spy smiled— _she understands the game_ , he thought, _which means she'll anticipate what we're going to do in it_. "Of course it doesn't. I'm going to beat you anyway, but it's always fun to have an excuse. Like adding a little spice to it."

The Heavy sat up in bed, the blanket sliding off him as he turned. "Not in here, you don't," he growled, reaching for the shotgun.

The Spy punched the Cook in the face as the Heavy reached for his gun, startling a choked noise and a thin stream of bloody spit from her as her head bounced back. "You know," he said conversationally, "I don't think you've learned your lesson. I know what you have back there, and if you think you won't pay for using it, we need to have a private chat."

He pulled her up by the ring on her collar while she reeled and punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind from her. She folded, gagging, tears running down her face. "And I know she hasn't learned her lesson." The Spy smiled. "Do you suppose," he said conversationally, "that she's feeling sexy right now?"

The Spy wrapped his fist in her hair, looking over the expression on her face. "How about it," he asked. "Feeling like sucking cock?" She gagged again, still straining to breathe. "No?"

"Enough," the Heavy roared, easing away from the gun. "I get it. Enough!"

"No," the Spy said, eyes roving down the Heavy, "you don't quite get it yet. I'll have to arrange a little lesson where it does the most damage. See you at breakfast."

Still using her hair as a lever, the Spy pulled the Cook from the room and marched her, stumbling, down the hall. He let her hair go in the kitchen.

"I've been dying," he drawled, "to see if you're any good." Smiling at his own joke, the Spy gestured at the counter. "I've always liked a proper quiche. And since you're here, I think I'd also like muffins. And bacon and eggs. And waffles. Hell, how about fried chicken? You have an hour. If you leave the room"—he took a deep breath and shivered with anticipation—"you know what happens. I'll be back."

He turned and left her. She dragged herself across the room by the counters, to the refrigerator.

When the Spy came back in an hour dressed, shaved, and showered, the Cook had made everything but the fried chicken. She had also hacked her hair off with one of the kitchen knives. It stood, messy and irregular, in red tufts all over her head. The Spy eyed it, knowing it for the sign of defiance it was— _well_ , he thought, weighing potential responses, _I didn't expect her to be easy to break in_. _Nobody who survived this long among us would be._ She stood, bent slightly at the waist from the spreading bruise on her stomach, and eyed him with wary disgust. _The black eye_ , he thought, a spike of heat running up his spine, _is a particularly nice start. People forget pain. They don't forget terror or damage to the face._

"I don't see any fried chicken," the Spy said, taking a step forward for the pleasure of making her retreat. "And your hair looks like shit." He sighed and rolled his shoulders to loosen them, watching her immediately fold, recognizing the threat, and then force herself to straighten. "How disappointing. Well, bring out what you have and come stand by the table."

She gritted her teeth, lower jaw slightly protruding, and grabbed the platter of bacon. The Spy moved just enough to let her brush past him, leaning back slightly and forcing her to slide her body against his. His erection was obvious and she shivered involuntarily with disgust each time she had to pass him, making the minute or so he'd spent making sure it was obvious justified. When she came back with the muffins, he tipped the platter, spilling the muffins on the floor.

"Look at that mess," he said, chiding and sly. "You can't possibly think I'd let all these things slide."

"Any excuse," she mumbled, looking away.

He smiled. "Precisely. Finish bringing the food out."

She kept having to brush past him, coming and going, feeling his erection glide against her hip as she passed the doorway. Her skin crawled, making the platters shiver in her hands. The room slowly filled as the smell of breakfast wafted through the hallways. The Heavy was the last to come to breakfast, and refused to make eye contact with anyone or anything, staring blankly at first the floor, then the table.

When she had placed the last tray and set the table, the Spy sat down and pointed at the floor behind him, between his chair and the Soldier's. The Soldier, with a broad grin, turned his chair.

"Well, Honey," the Soldier said, "I guess you had a nice night without us. And you went and cut off all that pretty hair, but you did a shit job. I'll buzz that right down after breakfast."

He patted his knee. "Come sit here."

She paused, muscles trembling and lip curled with rage and humiliation.

The Spy put down his fork. "Do you need further persuasion," he growled, tapping the skin under his eye with a finger.

The Cook took several steps forward and sat on the very edge of the Soldier's knee. The Soldier curled an arm around her and pulled her backward, settling her against him. She forced herself to relax one muscle at a time, hands hovering in front of her so that she wouldn't have to touch him anymore than he made her touch him. The Soldier reached out with the same arm and pulled them in, holding her across the stomach and arms. "There we are, Rosie, all safe and tucked in."

The other mercenaries at the table eyed her as she sat and the Soldier ate. The Spy's amused satisfaction made them hesitant to stare for long, but she could feel their curiosity and a smoldering, predatory uneasiness, waiting for the first move. Even the Heavy couldn't keep his eyes away for long, sliding to and away from the rings in her nipples and her black eye, then back to his contemplation of the table. There was no conversation at the meal, merely the civilized clink of forks hitting a plate, the quiet sounds of people eating, and the humming tension of the mercenaries.

The Soldier finished before anyone else, putting away food at an efficient, rapid pace with his free hand. "Old habits," he said in the Cook's ear, a tremor in her hands betraying her nausea at the touch of his breath. "I never learned to linger over meals."

The Spy cleared his throat, patting his lips with his napkin and throwing it over the plate. "Our friend"—he nodded to the Heavy—"spent the night giving her entirely the wrong impression about her place while we have her."

Behind her, the Soldier looked over at the Heavy, irritated. "I said you could borrow her. I didn't say you could spoil her."

The fork in the Heavy's hand bent under his thumb, curving around it.

"Temper, temper," the Soldier said. He turned to the Spy. "Whatever shall we do to fix this?"

The Spy drummed his fingers on the table. "An object lesson is in order, of course, for them both. And then there's the matter of the mess over there on the floor. She's a clumsy bitch."

The Soldier shifted her in his lap, pulling her onto both thighs, her feet dangling on either side of him. He parted his legs, parting hers and exposing her. "Now what could we possibly do," he said, leaning back slightly to cradle her to his chest, "to convince her that we do not give a shit what she wants?"

She took a hissing breath, tensing, and the Soldier dug his fingers into her arms. "Temper, temper," he repeated. "Just making it worse, Rosie."

"I suggest," the Spy drawled, "that we put on a little show—entertainment. You know how she feels about audiences."

She stared at the opposite wall, over the heads of the mercenaries at the table, and contemplated the virtues of different kinds of murder. She could feel the men at the table staring, eyes like a weight on her—the cold air between her legs, the exposure, what she smelled like, the vulgar posing—a study in studied horror. _Nothing_ , she thought, _is too horrible for me to do to these two. There is nothing I can think of that they wouldn't deserve_.

Over her head, the Soldier laughed excitedly. "They aren't going to go onto the field without a respawn, and I doubt they've fixed it by now." His arms tightened around her, her arms trapped against him. The muscles in her jaw worked as she ground her teeth. The Soldier started to bounce her gently on his lap against his hips. "Would you like that, Honey," he said. "Would you like to show everyone what it looks like when you come?"

She could not make herself seem like she enjoyed it, could not force herself to do anything but sit there, rigid, while he ground himself playfully against her. Rage, glacial and icy, crawled along her skin like biting ants, breath ragged between her clenched teeth. _Kill you_ , she thought, her head buzzing with the strength of it. _Kill you all._

"Do you think," the Soldier said, slightly breathless, "that we should provide the lesson? Maybe we should make someone else administer it."

The Spy's fingers curled around the coffee cup and he sipped from it, eyes narrowed in theatric thought. "Now who do we know," he asked, drawing the tension out, "that needs a lesson."

The Heavy stood up quickly and nearly ran out of the room.

The Soldier chuckled— _the only thing_ , he thought, _funnier than his reaction is the fact that such a big fucker is a coward_. "Who else do we know?"

"I know," the Spy said, tone sleek in satisfaction. "There's a prissy little bitch sitting at the table." He looked over, staring pointedly at her exposed lips. "Make that two prissy bitches. One of them with a cunt."

The Spy turned to the Engineer, who visibly paled, eyes wide and terrified. "Come here, prissy bitch."

The Cook looked over at the Engineer, at the terror on his face, and head-butted the Soldier in the nose with the back of her head. The Soldier took a short, sharp breath, rocking back in the chair.

"You will not use me to rape him," she snarled and twisted, pulling an arm from his loosened grip and to claw at the Soldier's face.

"Oh, Honey," the Soldier said, voice thick with the blood coming out of his nose. "You just made a hell of a mistake." He stood up, and she threw herself from side to side in his arms, pushing against the table hard enough to scoot it backward and staggering him. The Spy stood up, cocked his fist back, and knocked her out, fist turning her jaw like a screw.

The Soldier looked at the small body dangling from the ropes in front of him, glad of the time he'd spent in the Boy Scouts and the sheer volume of time he'd spent tying things and people up—the prickling hemp web that restrained her wasn't coming off without someone cutting it, and when she woke, would be exquisitely painful. The training he'd received in the Marines, the bit they'd all done on resisting interrogation, had been a study in fascinating new ideas. He hadn't even minded how fucking much parts of it hurt, too busy cataloging new ways to cause pain. The internet, a recent addition to the base, had been an explosion of ideas. _There are so many of us out there_ , he thought. She stirred slightly in the web, whimpering. If his nose hadn't been throbbing, he might have let her wake up mid-act. _The pain is_ _no more than she deserves, and has the appeal of being incredibly sexy to look at_.

She woke to a concussive flash across the back of her eyes. Her thighs burned. Her feet were tingling. Her shoulders screamed, the tendons tearing. Her hands were numb blocks at the end of her arms. The Cook opened her eyes, the Soldier slowly swinging into focus through her good eye and the slit of the bruised one. His nose was swollen, a faint crusting of dried blood around the edges of his nostrils.

"Well, Honey," he said, "you've done it now."

She turned her head slowly, looking at the bar between her ankles and the pulley high above her head.

"Now, I've always liked this position because it looks so"—the Soldier took a huffing breath, trying not to laugh—"innocent." He rubbed the underside of his nose gently, loosening some of the dried blood, and hissed at the pain. "Go ahead. Take it in."

She looked down. The bar between her ankles kept them spread wide, a rough hemp rope winding around the joint and another set around the thighs and calves, on either side of her knees. The pulley above her pulled her arms up taut, hanging from the rope snaked around her wrists and forearms in a figure eight. In a painful, exaggerated squat, she balanced on her toes and the ball of her foot.

"This position will eventually dislocate both your shoulders," he said. "It'll also fuck your wrists and ankles up." He poked her in the side, causing her to rock on her toes and her shoulders a new wave of pain. "And your hips aren't going to like it, either."

The Cook stared at him, icy rage slowly guttering and leaving panic in its wake.

"Now, I don't mind you being a bit bloody," he said, "but this position will cripple you until someone feels sorry for you and uses the medigun." The Soldier squatted down, making eye contact. "You're going to spend a good hour or two balancing like that, and then I'm going to ask you a question. If you say yes, I'll cut you down. If not, I'll let the Doctor play with you a bit."

He dug his fingers into the inside of her knees, forcing them open further and sending another white hot surge through the complaining nerves of her hips. "Doc likes to do something I doubt you'll enjoy. He likes to cut people open and reach inside them, so he can touch their hearts and lungs. He keeps people awake for this."

She shuddered, imagination immediately showing her a picture of it, and pain swept her joints.

"If he plays with the Spy, there's liable to be skinning. You want that, Rosie?"

He could see the pulse jumping in her neck, just above the tight edge of the collar.

"I'm the good guy here," the Soldier said. "I just want to hurt you a bit and fuck you. Those two bastards will kill you. Slow." He stood up and stretched. "So stop pissing me off."

The Soldier walked out of the room and closed the door with a click. Her toes burned, flexed flat against the floor, and every breath sent her teetering on their edges. Her shoulders had started to go worryingly numb, a slow, creeping loss that made her wonder if she would ever hold anything again, or be able to pick anything up. Pulling at the ropes only made some new part of her ache, or start buzzing as if it were about to go numb.

Panic fought her for control, adrenaline screaming at her to do something, to kick and push and run, anything to get the ropes off and get the hell out of that place, each panting breath sending another burning gout of sparks from her abused joints to join the throbbing in her face and the twinge as her chest moved.

She flinched at the quiet click of the lock and hissed. The blurry shape approaching her resolved into the haggard face of the Engineer, who held a finger to his lips. "I couldn't bring a chair in," he whispered, "but I can do the next best thing." The Engineer sat down in front of her and carefully picked her up, scooting so that her feet rested on his legs.

"I'd put your legs over my shoulders, but this is neither the time nor the place." He smiled at her, waiting for her to laugh. When she didn't, the Engineer's face once again assumed its harried expression. "It's supposed to be a joke," he muttered.

The additional height let her rest her weight on her heels and the balls of her feet. She sighed, then winced as the feeling started to flow painfully back into her shoulders.

"We don't know each other," the Engineer whispered. "But after what you did at breakfast, I thought I'd pay you back. I don't really know much about ropes, so I can't untie you without them knowing. But I can support you some."

He wrapped his arms around her and scooted forward, until she was balanced on his upper thighs. "I've been here a long time," he said. "With them."

When she didn't flinch away from him, he started to rub her legs, fingers digging rhythmically into the straining muscles. She grunted as a portion of the screaming in her nerves started to quiet, looking down at him— _if I grated him until I could read newspaper through him_ , she thought, _he wouldn't be any less worn down_. The brown eyes that looked up at her were framed in purple hollows, his skin and bony body twitching with the strain. She found herself wondering how he managed to do his job, to haul the heavy tool box and his equipment through the field.

"I can't remember what it was like before," he whispered. "I had an entire life, I know I did. I have degrees, and I had college and relationships." The Engineer took a sobbing breath. "But it's been so long, and they make everything else seem like a dream."

"Did you know," she murmured, "when you took the contract?" _Did someone set you up_ , she thought, _as they set me up_. _Miss Pauling said they expected me to fuck them, that they knew what kind of inclinations I have. Did they send you in to be stress relief for these fucks?_

She was grateful for rage, grateful for how clear it made her thoughts, pushing away the terror and the agony in her body.

The Engineer's hands slowed. "No. I wish I had. I took a contract to be a mercenary, but mostly to get the chance to do research with a nearly endless budget. I thought being a mercenary would be fun, like James Bond or the movies." His fingers shivered on her thighs.

 _How could anyone send a fresh college graduate into this shithole with those evil fucks_ , she thought. _At least I spent my time around rough boys before I came here._ The Cook flexed her toes again, trying to keep them awake. "We have an hour before he comes back," she murmured. "Don't get caught."

The Engineer smiled at her sadly. "I don't doubt one of them already knows. They follow me a lot."

She asked him why then realized why, breath catching in her throat.

He looked away from her, from her bloodshot gaze and the nearly inhuman expression on her face. In the dim lighting, she could see him blush. "I'm not as…. I didn't…." The Engineer took a breath. "I'm not ex-military. I'm not a hard case. I didn't have an unhappy childhood. I'm not… like them. At first, I didn't know what to do when they would…."

He turned back toward her, pleading with her to understand, to tell him that he was okay and that not knowing how to deal with monsters was a normal thing. "They're good at finding ways to hurt you."

She blinked heavily, swallowing her rage with an effort, and spoke. "I don't think very many people would have been prepared." She wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he was a decent person in a horrifying situation, something, anything that would give him a modicum of peace, fumbling at something to say or do that would ease him.

The Engineer went back to rubbing her legs. After a pause, he spoke, his voice small. "Why did you do it?"

She laughed, a short bitter noise and the movement sending another wash of agony up her spine. "I draw the line at being a tool for rape."

"How are you doing this," he whispered, searching her face.

The Cook looked at the agony on his face, the guilt and the fear and the helplessness that muddied his eyes and blacked their sockets. _What you want to ask_ , she thought, _is why you aren't doing it, and I will not make it worse for you_. "I was talking to the Cleaner a few days ago," she finally said. "She reminded me of a few things. One of them was that with experience can come resilience."

He looked at her, anxious and shy. "How?"

Her throat was full of clots— _you poor baby_ , she thought. _Oh god, you poor baby._ "Like a pearl," she whispered. "Something hurts you and layer by layer you build around it."

The Engineer stared at her, incredulous and worn. "Why doesn't it crush you," he whispered. "How does it not crush you?"

The Cook wanted to scream, a wordless bellow at the agony in his face, at what had been done to him, at the theft of soul and mind that he had been forced to endure. And beneath it, terror whispered to her what she had been trying desperately not to think of. _No one can hold out forever_.

Panting, she looked down at his face, vision obscured by the lump beneath her eye. He scanned and rescanned her face, trying to figure out if she was angry with the involuntary tic of the abused who search for some way to predict their next wound. "It's not"—she cleared her throat, blinking rapidly against the sting of tears—"it can crush you. But you look for little ways to undermine it and push back. Sometimes you can't do anything but endure."

He looked lost, childlike and utterly abandoned, his hands falling limp to his sides and his eyes with them. The sight of it burned into her, a focus for nightmares and consuming rage.

"They're sick," she said spat, thinking of the RED Heavy. "It's their sickness. Not yours. Not your sickness." _They will pay_ , her thoughts chimed. _Pay and pay and pay and pay._

The Engineer looked at her then, at the anger and the pain on her face. "I don't," he said quietly, "understand why you'd risk yourself for me. You don't know me." His fingers crept back up, resuming their work on her cramped thighs.

Her mouth worked, empty of speech, unable to tell him what had moved her—his face, rage at her rape, the million fractures of self and others, the cruelty, the memory of cruelty—it was these things, piled atop each other and some inarticulate force like the hammer of god, smashing away anything but the knowledge that death was not too high a price to put on stopping it. _I would kill_ , she thought, _and die to prevent this_. _What am I worth if I do not?_

He watched her chew the air, brain filled with a torrent of impressions and memory, and feared to trust her. She could see that as well, with the terrible clarity of experience: predicting, trying to predict, trying to figure out where safety could be and unable to believe it might exist.

"Mercy," she croaked, voice dying in her chest, then repeated it more gently. "Mercy." She flexed her calves, realizing that they had gone numb.

The Engineer flinched at the word.

"Mercy and three corpses in a hole in the ground."

The Engineer stilled, his eyes on the bar between her ankles. "I'll never get used to the fact that we kill each other."

The door slid open behind them, unobserved.

"Honestly," she said, looking at his pale scalp, "I'm not sure if I can shoot you or the Heavy after this. You're not faceless BLU anymore."

"I didn't used to be faceless," he murmured. "Now I'm not sure what I am anymore."

The Spy appeared behind him. "A toy. You are a toy. You're also interfering."

The Engineer's body froze, his eyes rolling to the side and fingers gouging into the Cook's calves.

"I should," the Spy said, his tone heating, "string you up beside her. You both seem very chatty." He walked forward and put his hand on the back of the Engineer's neck, trapping his head.

"Do you know," the Spy said, staring at her, "what this one does when we don't have something better to play with?"

The Cook flexed her fingers. "I'd imagine," she growled, "that you abuse him."

"Is it really abuse when they learn to like it? He was such a tender young thing when they sent him." The Spy's fingers flexed on the back of the Engineer's neck, digging into the ridges of muscle. "Sometimes, I think the company sent him to give us something to play with. It's like them to use something for more than one purpose."

"Or perhaps," she replied, voice venomous, "you're using that as a convenient excuse to make a victim out of him. You do love your convenient excuses."

The muscles jumped in the Spy's jaw. "Let me show you what we do with him." He looked down at the Engineer. "Put her legs over your shoulders."

The Engineer's face went blank. The Spy tightened his fingers. "Put her legs over your shoulders, or you and I and the Doctor will spend a little quality time together. That man is tense and only getting tenser as time goes on. He needs a little outlet."

The Engineer lifted the bar with some effort and bent at the waist. The Cook swore as her shoulders were pulled, an involuntary, pained moan escaping her lips. When her legs were over his shoulders, the Engineer sat up slowly, the same, blank look on his face. His breath, rapid and shallow, puffed out against the inside of her thigh.

"Now turn around," the Spy said.

The Engineer turned like a doll, the stubble on the back of his head scraping her lips. The Spy smiled, malicious and sure. "He really is an excellent cock sucker. It took us a little while to persuade him to do it, but he's learned to do it well." The Spy unzipped and fed his cock through the open zipper. "We had to knock his teeth out a few times to get him to learn to cover them with his lips, but he's come a long way since then."

The Spy walked forward, stepping over the Engineer's folded legs and standing with his feet on either side of the Engineer's hips. "Straighten your legs."

The Engineer straightened his legs, bouncing the bar between her ankles on his stomach.

"That's much better." The Spy shifted his feet closer together. He looked down at the Engineer. "You know what to do."

His hands held down by her legs and the bar between them, the Engineer leaned forward and sucked the Spy's cock into his mouth.

"I like to think,"—the Spy moaned, staring at the Cook—"that even if the war were to end tomorrow, he'd feel compelled to seek someone like us out, someone to give him what we've taught him to crave."

She could feel the Engineer shudder.

"We're going to do something fun, now. I'm going to fuck his face, which is going to bounce that stubbled head against you." He reached down and worked his fingers between the back of the Engineer's head and the Cook, seeking and flicking her clit. "I wonder," he said dryly, "if you will like that."

The Cook stared at him, her eyes hot and dry. "I will eventually get out of here and I will kill you. Often. Slowly."

He smiled again, baring his teeth. "Will you? That makes this personal. We will have to see who kills better: you and the little experience you have, or I? I have been killing men, women, and children for the last sixty years, slut."

"No," she said, "you've been stabbing people in the back for that long."

The Spy shrugged. "Sometimes. "And sometimes in the face. Or in the side, or in their beds, or while they fuck someone, or when they have made dinner and they think they are alone, or in the bathtub." He moaned again and started to bounce the Engineer's head briskly against her.

She tensed, trying to scoot backward, and the Spy grabbed the rings in her nipples. "Keep moving," he panted. He pulled them forward, making her scoot forward on the Engineer's shoulders until she was pressed to the back of his head.

The Spy leaned forward, trapping the Engineer's face so that he could not breathe. She could feel the cords of muscle in the back of the Engineer's neck stand out and his shoulders shift as he struggled.

In her face, the Spy said, "Half the fun of all this is the fact that I know you're getting wet, and that here in a minute, I'm going to finish down his throat and make him leave you hanging there, with a burn from his stubble, cooling. The Soldier is going to come in and find you with your cunt sloppy and wet, and he's going to wonder what you were up to." He took a breath. "It's going to piss him off."

She flinched, unable to prevent herself.

The Spy leaned back slightly, letting the Engineer take a choked breath. Keeping his fingers on the Cook's rings, he fucked the Engineer's face, each stroke making him pull the rings painfully. When he came, he reached out and twisted her nipples until she made a breathy noise. When he pulled back, the Engineer had sucked him clean.

The Spy tucked himself into his slacks. "Good boy. Now turn around and make sure she's nice and wet."

The Engineer turned, his lips wet and clumsy. She looked down at him, at the still blank expression on his face. "It's okay," she whispered. "I'm not mad at you for this."

Something flickered in his eyes, and he very gently flicked her sore clit, wringing a soft gasp from her.

"That's enough," the Spy said.

The Engineer reached up, grabbing her ass, and continued, making her squirm.

"Enough!" When the Engineer refused to move, the Spy kicked him in the lower back with a thud. "Get out from under her."

With a final, gentle lick, the Engineer ducked down and slid out from under her, letting her go back to balancing painfully on her toes. "I'm sorry," he whispered, then stood and walked slowly around her, favoring his back. The Spy swore and slapped him on the back of the head, sending him staggering.

"What is it about you," he said to the Cook, "that makes men act so stupid?"

She froze, incredulous, and then laughed at him before responding. "Kindness."

"Weakness."

"No," she said, staring at him. "Kindness."

The Spy waved his hand. "You can call it whatever you like, but it is a vulnerability. A weakness to be exploited."

When she started laughing again, he punched her in the stomach, knocking the air from her and yanking her shoulders until she felt something tear. The Spy turned, gesturing for the Engineer to follow him, and left the room.


	7. Self-Control

Time slipped away into the void, an hour in eternity, frozen like an insect in amber and agony. The screaming wrongness of her numb joints and the white hot throb of the parts of her she could feel blurred together into a sickening whole. Static danced in front of her eyes, red and white, black and the nameless color of shock. Shifts in balance fractured eternity and reformed it, incomprehensible and incoherent, and she hung in it like a drowned body.

At some point in eternity, the Soldier walked in and paused, sniffing the air then coming in close to examine her. Stubble burns on the inside of her thighs and the sticky residue left by the Engineer made it clear something had happened. _I suppose_ , he thought with a twinge of annoyance, _that I shouldn't be surprised_. "Who was it?"

She looked up at him dumbly and licked her lips. "One of your friends," she slurred.

"Which one?" He circled her, looking for signs of something else.

Her voice was rusty but clearing as she shook off the patient timelessness of pain. "The one I'm stabbing first."

The Soldier saw no other signs— _which one of those fuckers_ , he thought, _would take her trussed up like this and just play with her a little_. "And here I thought we had a special bond."

Her eyes flicked away from him, looking at the door, but she said nothing.

He sighed deeply. "Very well. Here's the question: sex show or time with the Doctor and Spy?"

She refused to answer.

"See, Sweetie, this is the part where I get firm with you. I hate to use the same threat a few times in a row, but the way I've got you trussed now would make it very easy for me to grab a few like minded fellas and have a pre-game warm up." The Soldier squatted down and traced her open lips with two fingers. "Still sticky." With a quick, rough move he stuck them in her. "What do you say, sweetie? Pre-game warm up or answer?"

She swore and tried to turn, straining against the abused tendons in her shoulders and hips, but was prevented by the bar. The Soldier curled his fingers, sending a shock up her spine, waiting, watching her eyes roll up to beseech heaven or any intervention, watched the first wetness well up from them. _Attrition_ , he thought. _One outrage at a time until you give in if you even think I might want something._

"Show." The Cook glared at him, red faced, through the tears.

He chuckled and pulled his fingers out of her, wiping them on his pants. "That's my girl." Walking to a hook in the wall, he lowered the rope until her arms were dangling, limp, at her sides. She fell backward heavily, sprawling. "I still haven't shaved that mess you made on your head," he said, "so to my room we go."

The Soldier unfolded a knife and cut the ropes from her ankles, then unwound her legs. "Try to stand up."

She rolled over slowly and tried to push up against the floor, but her purple hands and feet were numb and the joints were rubbery. The Soldier swore, then knelt down and hefted her over his shoulder, driving the air from her lungs. She hung there, limply, trying to twitch her arms and legs, to make them respond again.

"You're kind of delicate, ain't you," he said. "Don't get used to being carried everywhere. I wouldn't want you to get lazy."

He pushed through the door, a wet spot growing on the back of his shirt as she silently cried, and walked to his room. When he flopped her down on the bed, she still couldn't catch herself and hit her head on the wall. The Soldier looked down at her, annoyed.

"Still can't move them?"

She twitched the upper arm, but nothing moved in her hands, and she made a terrified noise—a sobbing whimper. The Soldier made a disgusted face.

"Really delicate. All right, fine, we'll visit the Doc."

The Cook closed her sandy eyes and he scooped her up, crossing the few doors between his room and the surgery with his fingers dug into the skin of her knees and waist. When he'd pushed his way through the surgery doors, he called out, "Hey Doc, I broke my toy."

The Medic looked up from a stack of paper. "And?"

"And I need to fix it a bit before I play with it again." The Soldier heaved her off onto an exam table with a grunt. "Fix it."

The Medic crossed the surgery. "I'll tell you what. I'll fix your toy if I can just give it a little cut first. I'm feeling tense."

The Cook started hyperventilating. The Soldier looked over at the Medic. "How little is little?"

"Just a finger or two, just to feel the skin parting and get my fingers wet."

The Soldier shrugged. "Just don't kill her. She can't move her arms and legs now, but I'd strap her down if I were you."

The Cook went wild, body twisting and turning, trying to throw herself off the table. The Soldier reached down and planted his hand in the middle of the Cook's chest. The Medic pulled the straps dangling under the bed up, buckling them with practiced skill, then pulled a capped scalpel from his pocket.

Looking down at her, he smiled. "Are you afraid?"

Sweat stood out in beads across her face. Her skin was clammy, and she realized she was holding her breath. The Soldier reached out and grabbed her head between both hands. "Well, Honey, at least he won't be doing what he normally does."

The Medic uncapped the scalpel, tucking the cap into his pocket. He spread a long fingered hand on her chest and lowered the scalpel. For part of a second, she felt nothing, simply heard a quiet meaty noise. And then, the burning spread itself through her chest, fire and agony and stiffness and the feeling that something inside her would spill out—some vital organ would, with a little pressure, come right out of her. She wanted to reach for herself, to hold herself together, but every move set off a new wave of nausea and agony.

The Soldier tightened his fingers on her head. "All right, Doc, that's deep enough. And long enough. Stick your fingers in there and be done."

The Medic smiled and disappeared from her view. A fraction of a second later, she felt a tearing sensation that made the original pain seem pale and small. Something wriggled inside her chest, and she could feel her body parting, obscenely, around it. He sighed, relieved. "I missed that."

The Soldier looked over at him. "You are a sick fucker, you know that?"

The Medic looked at him, mildly. "You sink your cock into them. This is much safer, with gloves. But this one is clean, so I don't need them." His fingers burrowed in deeper and she could feel the muscles in her jaw popping from the strain, from the feel of those fingers pushing past layers of muscle, fat, and connective tissue.

"I wonder," the Medic said, "if I could just touch her lungs."

"That's enough, Doc."

The Medic stood, mesmerized, his fingers wet to his palms, blood pattering on the floor in a steady rain. Her breath was too shallow to allow screaming, or anything but a strange, hoarse, high-pitched sound, spilling from her without effort or thought. She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to scream again, or make any noises but that same, strangled whimper.

"Doc, come on."

"Just a minute longer. I can feel her body parting around me, the muscles pushing back at me and the connective tissue clinging." The Medic shuddered, his free hand curling around the leather strap across her chest. "This always makes me feel like god, to have a life in your hands." His eyes were wild, and a faint sheen of sweat on his lip made him scrub his face against his sleeve. "It's such a perfect moment, and when you reach into them and curl your fingers around the tough sack of the heart, and feel it fluttering in your hand…." He took a halting breath.

"Doc, seriously. Stop it."

The Medic drew his fingers slowly out of her, clinging to the texture of her body as they were removed. His eyes were dreamy and distant. "I will never get tired of that feeling. Flesh is so stubborn. It pushes against your fingers and clings, hot and wet." He turned to the Soldier. "I'll never understand," he said, drunk on the feeling of his fingers inside her, "why you'd rather stick your dick in something that is not so fresh and unspoiled."

"Just fix her."

The Medic floated to the sink and washed his hands, then picked up the medigun. When he turned it on, she felt no euphoria, only the sensation of something inside her body closing, from the outside in, the swelling fading and the feeling rushing back into her arms and legs like burning needles. She lay there, stunned, feeling herself surge back to health, the pressure of the lock on the back of her neck starting to hurt.

"Thanks, Doc." The Soldier unbuckled the straps and pulled her up by the ring on the front of the collar. "All right, now I fix the mess you made on your head. Then I'm going to give you a shower."

He strode ahead of her, pulling her along, through the double doors and down the corridors to his room. When he'd shut the door behind them, he let go of the ring.

"I told you," the Soldier said. "I'm the good guy, here." He pulled the desk chair out and gestured to it. "Sit down, and I'll trim what you did to your hair."

She stumbled numbly for the chair and sat in it. The Soldier pulled the electric razor from his top drawer and plugged it in.

"I think, Rosie, that you've left enough length to keep me from having to shave it bald. I never liked bald women."

The razor hummed behind her ears and she shivered as the tickling, itching hairs fell on her back and neck. She was suddenly and strangely reminded of hair salons, of the kind of hovering and impersonal presence of someone tidying her hair, making small talk—politics, relationships, the weather—and wondered if she would ever sit in a salon chair again without hearing the buzz of his clippers, her scalp becoming more naked by the second.

"There's just enough to give you a nice recruit buzz. Like mine."

He turned off the razor and brushed her shoulders with a hand. "I see someone already got the leather wet. It's not good for it, so I'm going to take it off for your shower. I'm going to get in with you, so you'd better behave."

She felt him fumbling behind her, and the weight of the padlock was pulled off her neck, followed by the pressure from the collar. He put his hand on the back of her neck, squeezing.

"All right, Rosie. Let's go take that shower."

With his fingers curled around the back of her neck, he marched her to the bathroom. His hand pointed over her shoulder.

"Get in."

She couldn't think. Somewhere, some part of her was screaming. But everything else was oddly numb, even pliant. She obligingly lifted her leg and climbed into the tub, staring at the faucets. The Soldier let go of her neck and bent to turn the taps. The Cook briefly thought about kicking his head, but that same odd frozen impulse made her stand still, not flinching though the first spray from the shower was icy. The Soldier stripped, kicking his clothes into the corner, and joined her when the water was warm.

The Cook could feel him standing behind her, watching the spray trickle down her back, with the animal sense that let her feel the warmth of another body. He reached out and turned her around by the shoulders, scrubbing the hair off her shoulders, back, and ass. She could see his eyes, the weighing, assessing look in them.

"You know, I think this suits you. The long hair was handy, but you're more delicate looking without it. Fragile." He rubbed his thumb across her lower lip, watching it move wetly. "There's a scar there. What did you do, Rosie?"

She looked at him dumbly. He let his hand drift down, tracing the now healed cut the doctor had made. "But you are fragile, aren't you? Short and small and fragile and weak."

His hand drifted up toward her breast and cupped it. "Fragile and weak and needy, the way women are needy. If you aren't made busy or given something to fill you up, you get into mischief, don't you, Rosie?"

The Soldier squeezed gently. "I bet you were a naughty little girl. Bet you started early, chasing after boys. Or did they chase you?"

The Cook let the sound of his voice wash over her like the water, still in that same, frozen state.

"I bet they chased you a bit, with that foxy red hair." He slid his fingers together, trapping a nipple ring and tugging it gently. "Weak little thing that you are, I don't imagine you put up much of a fight." She didn't move.

He laughed. "Frozen in there, are we? Want me to warm you up? I bet I could warm you right up again."

The water washed down her back and she concentrated on its warmth, imagining herself following it down, through the drain and the pipes and somewhere else.

"Dissociation. We can't have that, because I want you to feel this. I want you to learn a lesson from it. Do you know what that lesson is?"

He paused briefly, to see if he could get a rise out of her. With a satisfied smirk, he continued. "That lesson, Rosie, is your place. You can't play with the boys, Rosie. You're not strong enough. You're not tough enough. It's the way you were born, and you can't help it."

"But I can help you," he said, reaching down between her legs. "I can help you understand your place. If we had enough time, I could teach you this lesson more permanently. I could teach you to be grateful, to hit your knees when anyone so much as pays you attention."

He feathered the calluses on his fingertips against her clit. "I want you to remember this when you're on the field again. I want you to remember this any time you put up a fight. I want you to remember this moment in the shower, and the fact that you're too weak to stop me and too weak to bounce back."

The Soldier smiled at her and drew his hand back. "But I'll save the best part of the lesson for the show. Do you know what we're doing, Rosie-girl? We're going to record it, and I'm going to send little bits of it over to the RED base when I think they need reminding what you are and what you're good for. And ever so often, we'll come get you again for more footage."

He leaned down slightly, putting his face in hers. "You see, they treat you like you're valuable, but I know better. I know, and you know, that you're a whore. I want them to think about that any time they touch you. "

He kissed her on the cheek. "Eventually, they'll all touch you like I do. There will be no one left who thinks you're anything but a whore. You'll stay here forever, being just exactly that. The company won't let you go—they can't. You've seen too much, and what if you talk? They'll come up with an inducement, or they'll just torch anything that might appeal to you outside this, and you'll be stuck here, with us. I don't think BLU will even bother to get another cook, and frankly, Honey, I don't think they got you for the food."

The Soldier kissed her on the forehead and she closed her eyes. "You can't even commit suicide to get away, because when you die, you'll simply spawn back in their locker room, wondering when the next time we come get you will be and seeing your shame reflected in the eyes of all those boys in RED."

He stepped back. "Pick up the soap and wash me."

She reached woodenly for the soap, staring at her hand as if it belonged to someone else. The ridges of his stomach waited for her to lather him. She refused to look further down, refused to think about what he had said.

"Rosie, Honey, you want to go ahead and get that done. I owe you a little beating, and it'll be worse if I have to ask again."

The Cook fumbled to soap across his body, avoiding his cock. He had to put her hands on it, promising more time with the Medic, to get her to touch it. In the back of her head, she could hear the RED Sniper pointing out the veins and arteries, the ways to kill with a knife. In her memory, the RED Spy reminded her that desire was a weapon.

She had no idea how to use it, no idea how to fake enthusiasm to touch the Soldier, now visibly hard. He took the soap from her and pushed on her shoulder.

"Down."

The Cook knelt, the water pouring down her face and back, staring at his feet.

"I've always wanted to do this," he said. "But I don't want to make a mess of my bed or floor doing it."

His urine was steaming hot, warmer than the water, and dark yellow. She watched it drip off her head, dilute and flow past her knees. When the flow stopped, he sighed. "That was more fun than I thought it would be." The Soldier laughed. "I can see what that Sniper gets out of it. It's delightfully degrading."

He reached past her, his cock brushing her cheek, and turned the water off. "You can get up now."

The Soldier pushed the shower curtain open and got out, toweling himself off briskly before throwing her the towel. "Dry off and come out here. Make sure your neck and head are very dry so you don't damage the leather."

She looked down at the towel, then started drying herself slowly, her mind turning over the vulnerabilities the Sniper had pointed out, the nerves the Spy had pointed out. He had to die. The BLU Spy had to die. The BLU Medic had to die. She had to kill them herself, to hold the knife and to rip and to tear and to kill. She didn't even need to scream any more. She needed to cut them open, reach inside them, and pull their intestines out like party ribbons.

The Cook looked around the bathroom. Nothing. The razor he used on his face was too small to cause that kind of damage, and there was nothing else but a comb aside from the soap and shaving cream.

"Don't take too long in there, Rosie-girl."

She put the towel on the counter and took a breath, steadily avoiding the mirror. When she walked out of the bathroom, the Soldier was in fatigues and a thermal shirt, the collar in his hand. Her nipples hardened instantly from the cold and he smiled wryly and shook a finger. "You're going to tell yourself it's the cold. But it's not. Turn around."

He settled the collar back against her while she searched his room with her eyes. Against the far wall, above his desk, a magnetic strip held an odd assortment of tools: a set of metal shears, a few screwdrivers, an awl, a set of leather shears, two hammers, and several sizes of pliers. As he clicked the lock shut again, she wondered which one she wanted to use first. The Cook forced her eyes back down as he turned her around, trying to keep it off her face. She started to shiver convulsively in the frigid air.

"Tell you what, Rosie. Since you were a good girl, I'll let you wear one of my shirts. Would you like that? Would you like to smell me and know that I'm the only reason you're not freezing right now?"

She clenched her teeth, but they chattered anyway. He chuckled, and pulled a shirt out of his drawers, pulling it over her head and letting it drop until it reached mid-thigh. The musky, slightly acrid smell made her want to scrub her skin off, but it warmed some of her.

"Can't let you have underwear, though, or pants. No point in putting them on you. How much self control do you have, Rosie?"

She tried to make herself stop picturing stabbing him long enough to raise her eyes and answer. "Some."

"We'll see."


	8. The Urge to Weep and Riot

The Soldier walked around behind her, opening the foot locker and emerging with a fiberglass cane. The little signs—the fact that she was staring fixedly at the wall, the poorly concealed rage, the rigidity in her body—all signaled continuing resistance. Much, much more than he'd originally anticipated, the woman appeared to be able to marshal a sort of enduring rage in response to the various indignities they'd put to her. Her composure had cracked a few times, but there was still a stubborn core that kept pushing back, some part of her that kept rallying. In the shower, her frozen, alienated expression and obedience had been heartening, as had her shivering reaction to what he'd told her. _All true_ , he thought, _but still a lesson she hasn't absorbed_.

He cocked his head, considering her, the pale legs beneath the edge of the thermal, the tight band of the collar, the short red fuzz that covered her head. Pain would, for this one, be a matter of attrition. She was too used to it in other circumstances. Shame would definitely be a tool worth using. The question, of course, was what motivated that stubborn core. He racked his brain, searching his memory and comparing it to the figure in front of him. Her moments of compliance had been, he sensed, in the service of trying to get it over with, though her behavior in the shower seemed almost stunned. It was pretty clear that life or someone had gone to considerable trouble to strip her of the usual responses to pain, whether just by misfortune or some sort of deliberate design. How does one break someone who has already been so thoroughly broken—the answer made him laugh out loud as it occurred to him.

The thing she wouldn't expect would be for him to behave as if he were breaking her into a form of domesticity: sharing a bed, sharing a meal, the carrot of pleasure dangling over her head unpredictably until she'd feel obliged to reach for it. His usual sort of ritual—the simple, elegant, and brutal application of pain, something that generally sufficed both because it was aversive and for simple shock value—would have to be more subtle.

He ran the shaft of the crop through his fingers, the smooth rubber sheathing it a soothing texture, still considering what subtlety would entail in this particular case. The limited time they had together left a number of methods out, but the continuing threat of being kidnapped offered a good tool for building the kind of breaking tension he'd need. She shifted from foot to foot, still staring at the wall. _A test of self-control_ , he thought, _and of a few other things_.

The Soldier cleared this throat. "Put your hands on the back of the chair."

She flinched immediately, the time he'd spent considering her serving to make the tension nearly unbearable, then took a step forward and wrapped both hands around the wooden ridge on the back of the chair, still staring at the tools on the wall.

"Grip it hard," he said, "and don't let go. Think of this as a test of your self-control. If you take your hands from the chair, I'll give you a fat lip to match the one we just healed. If you don't, I'll let you pick your partners for the show—well, except that you can't have the Heavy. He still hasn't learned what kind of war he's in. Pity, that. He's a big old boy under the belt. It would be entertaining watching you try to cope."

His breath tickled the side of her neck and her eyes widened, unseen, a hand twitching. "I'm hoping you'll pick me. At least you know what I like."

The Soldier stepped back, loosening his arm. "Better the devil you know, Rosie."

The first crack sounded like a gunshot and felt like a flaying. She could feel the skin instantly rising in a welt across the back of her leg, the shock making it collapse into a dip before she recovered and locked her knees, fingers clenched to bruising on the chair back.

"I've never understood," he mused, "why people bother with making this fun for the submissive. That's not the point."

The Soldier laid a crossing pattern of welts across both of her thighs as she stared at the tools, finally deciding to start with the awl and his eyes, putting them out for the poetic justice of the offenses he'd made her witness. She was so immersed in her fantasies and the surreality of pain—the high of endorphins and endurance, the strange way the body adapts—that she didn't notice the door opening.

He stopped with a frustrated growl, the sudden break shocking her back to hearing.

"The Cleaner is here and she is pissed." She didn't recognize the voice, nor the sound of steps that stopped behind her, a sort-of shuffling squeaking, as if the person walking were still making up their mind with every step what direction they would be going. A hand splayed across the welts, cool and long fingered, measuring the heat from them. "She wants to talk to you about RED's respawn. If you want to keep this one, you're going to want to hide her or something. Nice job." The fingers stroked the bluish welts on the back of her legs, tracing up the back of her legs and underneath the thermal shirt.

The Soldier snorted, annoyed. "I still don't know why we have to be so polite to that bitch."

The voice replied. "Because she'll turn off respawn and kill you."

"I doubt she can, even with respawn off." The Soldier sighed. "But fine, I'll go play nice. You wanna keep her company? No fucking until we can record it."

"Fuck, yes."

The Soldier shook his finger. "Don't fuck her. I'm serious."

"Fine, yeah, we're good. Go away before the Cleaner comes in here and finds her."

She heard the foot locker open and close behind her, and the sound of the Soldier's boots squeaking away in the hall.

"You can let go of that, now."

Her fingers were frozen into claws. She pulled at them, slowly prying her fingers off the back of the chair. Someone reached out, gently prying her hands away from the chair. She saw bandages, and followed the wrists back to a wary face. Pale blonde hair stuck out from under a baseball cap, and the eyes underneath it were blue, ancient in his very young face—by the build, he had to be the Scout. This Scout seemed to have seen the end of the world, eyes full like a cup of misery.

"You shot me yesterday," he said quietly, holding her hands. "You're not supposed to be on the field."

"Your spy wouldn't leave me alone," she mumbled, still dizzied by the endorphins. "Even when I was just cooking."

He cocked his head, oddly intent stare making him seem feverish. "He does that. He never leaves anyone alone." He licked his lips and bit the lower lip, pulling a strip of flesh from it, before speaking again. "You've met my counterpart—is he like me?"

"No."

The Scout drew his fingers from hers, taking a step back. "I hear him laugh sometimes when he's talking to the other RED." He scratched his head and his tongue lashed out, licking the bead of blood from his torn lip. "I don't think I've laughed in a long time. I don't know if I miss it."

As with the Engineer, she felt the same echoing grief looking at yet another of the snapped, frayed mercenaries at the BLU base— _how could they let you live like this_ , she thought. _How could they not care what happens to any of you?_ After a moment of scanning his face, she spoke. "How long has it been since you left the base?" The Cook tucked her hands up the sleeves of the thermal and watched him unconsciously rotating his feet to stretch his shins, preparing even now to run.

"I don't know." He wrapped his arms around himself, squeezing. "Sometimes there are sports games on. All my heroes are dead and I don't know the new players. I run and I fight. Time passes. I stopped talking to my family. Just felt like I had nothing in common with them anymore." He looked down. "And, you know, it seemed like a bad idea to bring shit like that in here."

"When were you recruited?"

"In 1958." He bounced on his toes, warming up the muscles in his calves absently. "Things have changed a lot. The Soldier gets magazines now, and you wouldn't believe what the women are doing in them." He looked at her legs. "Or maybe you would. You stood still for that. Do you like this kind of thing? Are you like the girls in the Soldier's magazines?"

She shivered, eyes distant. "Not when he does it. I want to be asked first."

The Scout reached out into the air between them, gesturing. "Would you really ask for this?"

"Not from them."

The Scout stepped forward, feverish eyes alight. "Are you a hippie? They used to talk a lot about free love. It always sounded to me like they didn't mean this, more just fucking."

"Times have changed," she said quietly, "but there were people like me even then. I can't imagine there's ever been a time without people like me."

He reached out for the ring on the collar, snatching at it and catching it as she flinched back. "I never got to do anything with girls like you. Only a few girls, but I didn't get to fuck them, just touch them and kiss them. I came straight here from high school."

The Scout pulled her closer using the ring, staring at her lips. "The girls in town will let me kiss them, but I bother them. And the ones you pay always seem bothered, too."

She dug her heels in, leaning back against the pull of his arms. "What are you trying to do to them?"

"Soldier is full of suggestions," he murmured, "but they never seem to work for me."

She tried to imagine what the Soldier might have suggested to him and her imagination shrunk away from the image of the serious boy in front of her trying to enact any of them. Nausea uncoiled in her gut, writhing—his eyes, old and heavy and full of something screaming in his unlined face. _No one_ , she thought, _has ever mentioned having to bribe women in town for the BLU team. What happens to those women?_

"What do you want, Scout?" She put her hands over his, wrapping her fingers around his bandaged wrists, and started to pull them from her collar. He tensed, tightening his grip, his eyebrows falling over his eyes.

"I want a kiss," he said stubbornly. "A real kiss, like you want to kiss me."

"And what else?" The space between them was rapidly closing.

"Just a kiss. I miss kissing." His voice sounded wistful. "I miss girls."

"You miss innocence."

His lips, inches from hers, moved with a sound so faint she barely caught it. "There's no such thing as innocence. Just vulnerability."

The Cook wanted to cry, a lump burning in her throat. When his lips met hers with the faint taste of his blood, she kissed him gently, wrapping her arms around him with a brief pause. She felt him go stiff, then slowly, painfully relax, his lips moving sloppily under hers. He slowly wrapped his arms around her, as if his skin pained him, and clumsily echoed the movement of her tongue and mouth on his. After a moment, she drew back and put her head on his chest, then squeezed him, wrapping her arms around his bony back. He grunted with surprise, then carefully leaned down to put his head on top of hers.

"My ma used to hug me like this," he whispered, his breath warm on her scalp.

And then, she started crying—noiseless tears that she had to clench her stomach to prevent from becoming sobs. When his shirt started to get wet, he made a surprised grunt but stayed still. She put her face in the middle of his chest, the slightly sweet smell of his skin rising around her, and cried for him, for the Engineer, for herself and both bases worth of men.

"You can't cry," he whispered. "You can't let them see you cry."

His words might have flayed her with less pain: memories of crouching in a bathtub, burning with shock and hundreds of blistered ant bites, half-fainting, her father telling her not to cry lest she be given something to cry about, her heart beating in her chest as if it could crush her ribs and free itself from her. The ant bites themselves, courtesy of playing outside and rolling onto an ant hill, were the least painful part of the memory—the kind of agony that moves beyond the aid of saline. She looked up at him, chewing his lip nervously, the extended childhood and dependence the circumstances had forced on him, the small attempt at mercy he'd given her with the warning.

 _Small kindnesses, small mercies, the gestures one makes in defiance against the rule of cruelty_ , she thought. _Of such things is sanity made._

The Cook took a deep breath, trying to recall her anger, her plans for the Soldier, Spy, and Medic, the pain in her chest spreading like fire. She reached absently to rub her chest, pulling away from him, the heel of her hand pressed to it.

The Scout cringed. "I think I bothered you. I'm sorry. I just wanted a kiss, but I bother people."

"It's not you," she said and stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "You are not a bad person." The Cook held him for a moment longer. When she stepped back, she'd composed her face again. She smiled, watery and dim, and let go of him. "It's going to be impossible to shoot you on the field any more. It's damn hard to be violent to people with faces."

The Scout looked at her seriously, his arms falling to his sides before he tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "It's a duty. That's what they pay us for."

She sighed, digging her fingernails into her palms. "I have so much to say about that I'm not sure I could possibly get it all out."

He shrugged and looked at her through his lashes, shyly. "I want to come back and be held again sometime, when we have more time."

Her lower lip started quivering, her face wrinkling, and she had to bite her lower lip. When her face was smooth again, she replied, her voice quavering. "Yes. Of course you can."

The Scout stared at her, hard. "We have to pretend to be enemies again before he comes back. Don't tell him I asked you for a hug and kiss. He punishes me when he thinks I'm weak."

Her eyes slid closed for a moment, unable to meet that earnest, feverish look and the weight of pain in his eyes, the trust he'd demonstrated in another small defiance against cruelty. She could hear him step back.

"Does the Cleaner know I'm here," she said, voice thick. She found herself digging her fingernails rhythmically into her palms, trying to stave off the conflicting urges to weep and riot. _My own pain_ , she thought, _is so small. So very small._

"She might." From the sound, he'd gone back to shifting foot to foot, restlessly. "She's pretty pissed about the respawn system, and I think she went to RED first to see the damage."

The Cook kept her eyes closed, pushing the tide of it back, and stayed that way until they heard footsteps in the hall.


	9. The Nature of the Trap

The Cook found herself thinking of a koan someone had told her once, a joke really, late one night while they mopped the floors. The night manager had turned to her and asked her what the tallest mountain in the world was. She'd answered Everest cautiously, and he'd laughed. The answer was that the one in her head still was—she felt like a stranded climber, clinging to the side of a sheer face and staring up the line of it into nothingness. Enormity after enormity, the last few months she'd been on both bases stacking up until the stack became incomprehensible and crushing. Up or down, neither mattered, and she wasn't sure there was even a direction she should go, simply that it was there, an impassible, heavy mass that teetered and threatened to fall on her.

She had cried, clinging to the RED Medic's leg, telling him she didn't know who she was any more, the great mass of it hanging over her head. She still didn't know who she was anymore.

She did know, however, who she wasn't.

The returning squeak of the Soldier's boots came with a familiar neat set of clicks beside it, the clicks doing double time as they dopplered closer. The Cook could hear the Soldier all the way down the hall. "There's no need to search our rooms. She's here. But she likes it here, and since we haven't been assigned one of our own, we should get our own time with her."

 _Conciliatory_ , she thought. _He's afraid of her, whether he admits it or not._ The mercenary corner of her mind, the dry part that took notes, snickered. _He wants me to fear him and lies about what he fears_.

The Scout stepped back quietly, slouching forward, his face flattening into a slight sneer. He put his hands in his pockets, watching the door out of the corner of his eyes. When Miss Pauling opened the door, he jumped slightly, almost indistinguishably, and started to talk with manic energy.

"Yo, Pauling! Whatcha lookin' for?"

Miss Pauling's bun was rapidly losing hair in slick, black hanks. Her face was flushed, eyes glittering, and she held a large, chrome-plated pistol in her right hand. She was panting with effort, and as the Cook watched, the muscles in her jaw jumped. Behind her, the Soldier's face was set in sullen anger, and he slowly pulled back the hand he'd put out, smoothing his face to match. He could not, however, stop the slow pull of his shoulders up toward his ears. Miss Pauling looked around the room, finally landing on the Cook.

"You," she barked. "Could you _possibly_ cause any more problems?"

The Cook blinked, mouth open, and put her hands up in front of her. "I didn't do this one," she finally said.

Miss Pauling pointed at the Cook and the Scout with the gun, then turned around to face the Soldier. "All of you. In the living room. Get everyone and get there, now."

She pushed past the Soldier, who stared at her retreating back as if planning to plant a knife in it. The Soldier took a deep breath and turned to the room with an unctuous smile. "Let's all be very good little boys and girls. Scout, I can escort her. Go get everyone else."

The Scout dashed out of the room, leaving the Soldier standing beside the door. The Soldier closed his eyes for a moment, breathing heavily. _That bitch_ , he thought. _That fucking grabbing bitch._

The Cook watched the silent snarl on his face, the malicious rage, and knew that whatever problem he had with Miss Pauling would become her problem, her body a convenience for the hate that rioted across his face.

After a moment, he'd marshaled enough self-control to think of an object lesson, something with which he could demonstrate to both women certain truths about the world. When he opened his eyes, it was with a vicious smile. "When she leaves, we're going to have even more fun playtime." He took two steps forward and hooked a finger through the ring. "But for now, let's be obedient, shall we?" Pulling her off balance, he strode down the hall, dragging her at a pace somewhere between a walk and a jog.

In the living room, he threw himself into a comfortable chair and drew her down, using the collar, until her ass was flat on the cold floor. "This," he said, "is where you'll be sitting. It's good enough for you." He nudged her with his boot until she sat on it, then rocked his foot back and forth. "I'll make you lick it off later, but it won't hurt Miss High-and-Mighty to see her sister in her … natural state. In the mean time, you'd better think happy thoughts and get my leather wet."

The mercenaries filed in individually, the Heavy pausing by the chair with a choked sound and the Engineer hovering by the door until the Spy muttered something in his ear. After that, he scurried in and simply sat on the floor near the Spy, bookending the Soldier and the Cook. The Spy merely kept his hand on the Engineer's head, its weight a subtle reminder. When she tried to turn and look at the room again, the Soldier put a hand on the back of her neck, digging his fingers in, and turned her toward the front of the room.

Miss Pauling was the last to enter the room. When he saw her, the Soldier gave a particularly strong twitch of his boot, startling a grunt out of the Cook, which drew every eye in the room to her. She ducked, embarrassed, and the Soldier gave a pleased chuckle. "Don't mind us," he said. "I'm dying to know what is so important." _I know I bother you bitch_ , he thought. _I know this bothers you as much as you bother me. I'm pulling your fucking chain. Acknowledge it._

Miss Pauling crossed the room to stand beside the Cook, the clicks of her heels hard enough to be a stomp. She pressed the gun to the Soldier's head, leaving a ring in the skin of his forehead. "Tempt me," she hissed, her eyes glittering with rage under the oddly heavy frames of her glasses. "Tempt me some more."

The Soldier lifted his arms from the chair, an overtly, obnoxiously innocent expression on his face. _Gotcha_ , he thought. "I can't imagine what you're reacting to." He let his gaze wander toward her breasts. "It isn't as if you're naked."

The sound of Miss Pauling clicking the safety off with her thumb was surprisingly loud. She stopped breathing and stood, staring at him, finger trembling with the desire to pull. He stared at her, grin vulpine and nasty. _Admit it_ , he thought. _If you pull the trigger, you're telling the whole room that it scares you when you see us treat the girl that way_.

After a moment, Miss Pauling shook herself and holstered the gun, stepping away with a sharp breath. "Which one of you morons," she snarled, "blew RED's respawn?"

The room stayed silent.

"Let me rephrase myself: before I turn your respawn off until RED's respawn is fixed, is there anyone who would like to perhaps get a little extra time with their respawn on and everyone else's off?"

The Cook could see the Heavy twitch. The Spy whispered under his breath, looking at the Heavy, who flushed an ugly shade of red.

"I can guess," Miss Pauling said drily, "which of you it is, but if I can't get confirmation, I'm punishing everyone."

In the continued silence, Miss Pauling swore. "All right," she said. "The company wishes to inform you that your salaries will be absorbed to recover the cost of replacing the equipment, until such time as the equipment has been paid for. From this moment until RED's respawn is functional, there will be no respawn for this team."

The air in the room grew electric with tension.

Miss Pauling smiled sharply at the Soldier, Spy, and Medic. "I have respawn. And it may be that some of your teammates do, as well. But you three certainly do not. So play nice."

The Cook felt the Soldier's boot still underneath her.

Miss Pauling pointed at the Cook. "You come with me now."

The Soldier reached out, wrapping his fingers around the lock on the back of the collar. "We're not done with her."

"Perhaps I wasn't clear. If I shoot you now, you will not come back. I want to shoot you. Give me an excuse." Miss Pauling's hand hovered over one of the gun butts under her arms.

"And how will we amuse ourselves?" The Soldier tugged on the lock, pulling the Cook's head back toward his knee and forcing her breasts out as her head came back. His hand crawled up her skull, pulling it atop his knee and snaking around it to lay like a second collar across the back of her neck.

 _The highest mountain_ , the Cook thought. _Neither up nor down, but waiting for it to fall on me._

Miss Pauling took a tight breath, staring down at the line of the Cook's neck, at the expression of distant anger on her face, the Cook watching her without hope or resignation, poised between action and acceptance. "Does it occur to you," she said acidly, "that we can't find a cook for this base?"

The Soldier shrugged. "So we should get to share time."

"Do you know why I can't find a replacement?"

The Soldier laughed. "Well, we've got our own serial killer and my methods are considered … naughty. And then there's our other interrogation expert."

"Precisely. Anyone we got you would suffer a psychotic break nearly immediately under your collective tender care."

The Cook watched Miss Pauling's face— _do you care_ , she thought, eyes narrowing. _Do you care at all? Didn't you or someone like you send me here to suffer without asking if I would suffer a psychotic break?_

The Soldier's fingers dug into the Cook's neck as his eyes wandered down Miss Pauling. "I don't know about that. We can always pick a good pain slut and Stockholm them until they like it."

Miss Pauling's fingers twitched, along with a muscle in her jaw, rolling as she ground her teeth.

 _She does care_ , the Cook thought. _Or she simply recognizes that this is supposed to be an insult._

The Soldier turned to the Medic. "Do you have any way to introduce amnesia?"

The Medic leaned forward, his eyebrows coming together. "Of course. But it wouldn't last indefinitely. The body would retain trained impulses, and each episode of amnesia would be relatively fragile. Much in the way of hard playing and it would fracture, even with a complete heal between play times. Of course, we could always use GHB or ketamine, but the toy would still have scattered memories. It would also be limp at the dose needed for amnesia—not much in the way of reaction—and rather boring."

The Cook stiffened and the Soldier looked down at her. _Is that so, Honey_ , he thought. _I'll remember that for later._

The Soldier's fingers squeezed the back of the Cook's neck and he resumed rocking his foot, lifting her gently off the floor toward Miss Pauling where she stood in front of them both. "This one has survived for how long without it now? We could just make her forget. She'll have some nightmares, but a little sleep medication will take care of that."

The Medic's lips quirked. "Better living through chemistry?"

Miss Pauling pulled a gun out and shot the Medic in the leg, blowing a soccer-ball sized hole in the couch and mostly severing his shin and calf. The Medic screamed, high pitched and panicked, and Miss Pauling sighed with clear pleasure. She looked at the Heavy. Over the panicked screaming of the Medic, she spoke. "Go get the medigun. Don't let him die."

Miss Pauling turned to the Cook. "I'm getting very annoyed. Get up now and come here."

To the Soldier, she said. "Tempt me again."

The Soldier gave the Cook's neck one last squeeze and he pulled his fingers slowly from her. "I'll be seeing you later, Rosie-girl."

The Cook scrambled up and walked to Miss Pauling, refusing to look back at the room while she tried to compose her face, to keep from it the sensation that the skin of her back was crawling.

"I see you got a shave." Miss Pauling ran her fingers over the Cook's head. "We need to have a little girl talk." She looked around the room. "Be good, boys. But don't let the Medic die."

Miss Pauling lingered in the room long enough to see the Heavy return and flick the medigun on, to see the skin once again joining, and to listen to the continuous, high screaming of the Medic. And then, finally, Miss Pauling pointed at the door. "Time to talk."

Miss Pauling led the Cook to the kitchen, and settled against the cabinets so that she'd be behind the door when it opened. She drew her gun and held it loosely. "Lock the door behind you," she said.

The Cook locked the door and got out from in front of it, following Miss Pauling's cue.

"Well," said Miss Pauling, "now you have a clearer view of conditions. I expect this is when you'll try your best to simply abandon your contract. I don't blame you but I will kill you a few times to make my point as soon as respawn is back up. Until then, I could always leave you here."

The Cook ran her fingers over the bristle on her head, playing with the texture— _I can't_ , she thought, _just leave it this way_. "Is there any way to make this team functional," she said hesitantly. "Any way to make this less awful?"

Miss Pauling looked at her for a second, blank, then gave her a tight half-smile. "I've been trying to talk Blutarch into letting me fix the problem for decades. Those three are precisely what they make a shallow grave in the desert for. Unfortunately, they are very good at killing, and Blutarch won't let them go while they're still killing efficiently enough to let him win against his brother."

She looked at the Cook closely, then tapped her free fingers absently against the cabinets. "I have to say I wasn't sure if you'd take to the more damaged members of this team."

The Cook laughed, a bitter, sharp noise that echoed on the tile. "Yet another set up."

"Not precisely. Think of it more as assigning a very specialized sort of manager." At the Cook's cackling sob, she added. "Let me explain."

"You can see now why we haven't been allowing them off base. Those three cover their tracks fairly well, but the volume of people missing from the closest town triggered an FBI investigation thanks to a concerned parent. No matter how much we bribe the police department, we can't prevent individuals from calling up the chain of command. The Medic, in particular, was based in a very large city before being recruited, and he's used to having a more steady stream of people to play with." Miss Pauling sighed heavily. "His usual targets don't resist him nearly as well as the RED team does, and while he's experimented a little with his own team, they don't fit his… type."

She scuffed a heel against the kitchen floor, a small expression of her overwhelming frustration. "Even though they know the world has changed, they just don't seem to understand that it's harder for someone to disappear now than it was when they were recruited." Miss Pauling's hands made fists. "Or at least, they don't know why they should care. So everyone is confined to base."

The Cook slumped down, back against the cabinets, her voice muffled. "So you sent me in to do what? To be a target for them? To help keep their stress levels down? How about my stress levels, or the stress of the poor fucking Engineer?"

Miss Pauling looked down at her with an expression of diffuse pity. "Whether or not you noticed, the RED team has slowly become more functional. They're affected by your moods, but you gave them a focus for a set of urges they probably didn't realize they had."

The Cook looked up at her, breathing heavily with anger. "I'm pretty sure they knew they wanted to fuck. I didn't take this contract to be whored out without being given the option to say no."

Miss Pauling grimaced. "Let's just say that we knew enough about you to know that it wouldn't break you if they didn't take no for an answer."

The room was silent. The Cook's hands trembled on her thighs, and Miss Pauling watched incoherent rage flickering across her face for a minute before continuing.

"It's not just the sex, though that certainly helped. You may have noticed that this is a bit of a pressure cooker, in terms of environment. Even if we rescinded the order that confines them to base, it would still be a pressure cooker. Not every man is capable of fucking another man to let the stress off, though we tried to make sure most of them were, since they would be confined here over the long term. Whether you like it or not, they've been slowly turning you into the kind of person who can stay here long term. And whether they like it or not, you've slowly taught them to care about you."

When the Cook finally spoke, it was nearly slurred by emotion. "You sent me here to what? To teach them how to love?"

Miss Pauling laughed at that. "No, it's nothing as fluffy as that. We sent you in to give them something to protect, to jar them from the long, bitter progression of the years and apathy."

Watching the Cook struggling not to do something violent, Miss Pauling smiled at her grimly. "On this base, I want you to do something else." She took a breath. "On this base, I want you to remind them that it doesn't have to be this way."

At that, the Cook put her head on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs, cradling herself as she sobbed. Unseen, Miss Pauling looked down at her, face softening for just a moment in an unaccustomed expression of compassion before it straightened back into its normal tension.

Miss Pauling waited out her tears patiently, letting the sobs become a gentle tremor in the Cook's shoulders before speaking. "I've been asked to extend to you a certain amount of bonus salary and a variety of incentives if you will be willing to spend some time at the BLU base. Should you happen to decide to retire, you will be a wealthy woman."

The Cook wiped at her face with the heels of her hand and cleared her throat, voice still thick. "I've been told I'll never be allowed to leave."

Miss Pauling stiffened and remained silent.

The Cook watched her, eyes widening, then said, bitterly, "then money's not much of an incentive, is it? And if I can't leave, what was the point of the contract?"

"We were hoping," Miss Pauling said quietly, "to find a replacement, or at least someone else to work with you. I've been searching for a replacement for those three, as well, but I haven't found the right mix of individuals. When the brothers chose their teams, they did so haphazardly. The only thing either one seemed to care about was symmetry. For RED, the mix happened to be relatively stable. For BLU, however.…" She let her voice trail off into a shrug, looking around.

"So I'm stuck," the Cook said, her voice rising, "until you find the right mix of submissive, masochist, unattached, clean, and messed up?"

"Also resilient, resourceful, intelligent, experienced, and ultimately able to manage volatile personalities." Miss Pauling tapped her leather-clad toe on the floor. "I did extensive research on you and some of the teams you managed in various kitchens. Your job is just as important as any other job on these bases."

"Maybe," the Cook said, frigid with anger, "you should start looking at sex workers."

Miss Pauling looked at her with pity and annoyance. "We did. None of them was willing to enter this contract with full disclosure, at any price. And they did not also offer to cook."

The Cook turned around behind her, blindly fumbling herself up using the counter, and blindly wrenched a drawer open, throwing its contents at the wall. Knives, forks, spoons—a clattering flood bouncing off the walls, skittering on the floor, the screaming sound of metal against tile. The drawer followed, shattering against the wall, and she grabbed the next drawer, emptying it of ladles, spoons, scoops and presses. Miss Pauling let her rage until she reached the third drawer, then slipped behind her and unlocked the door on the Engineer.

"Get me the Heavy, would you?"


	10. I Can Do Anything

As Miss Pauling watched, the Cook threw great gouts of silver at the wall, following the hardy forks, spoons and knives with cups, plates, glass—anything that made a concussive explosion, incongruously nude beneath an oversized thermal shirt. The skin of her thighs and ass shook with the force she applied to throwing, pitching over-handed as if attempting to knock out an invisible batter. The kitchen floor rapidly became dangerous, and she cut her feet without appearing to notice the red smears she had left on the floor, focused on keeping the torrent of breakable and unbreakable objects in the kitchen flowing. Miss Pauling sighed wryly. They were too much of a size for her to tackle the Cook, and wrestling with her would, unfortunately, be a bit too tempting for the mercenaries to see as prurient. The woman was, while not classically pretty, certainly attractive and Miss Pauling was not so work-focused that she did not notice her own frustration.

For not the first time, she bemoaned signing a contract that gave her a single day off a year. There hadn't been much in the way of alternatives to signing, so she had. Despite herself, Miss Pauling had spent the last century watching and helping the company arrange these sorts of scenarios—manipulating individuals and situations to their advantage—with the respect of someone witnessing a multidimensional chess game played by masters. The mind-boggling stress of the job, thanks to regular trips through respawn, never had time to drag her into chronic exhaustion. However, at times like these she found herself wishing to be able to spend more time not waiting for the phone to ring and yet another trip to some corner of the world to threaten or simply get rid of strangers. _Stolen moments in the form of a nice dinner or a cappuccino on the Piazza Navona_ , Miss Pauling thought, _are not a substitute for a vacation_. While she'd never have to worry about disease or pregnancy, thanks to respawn, she often didn't bother to find company for her day off—too much trouble to bother and far too many questions she couldn't answer about herself. It was the pleasure of silence she missed most.

The Engineer returned with the Heavy, their boots thudding in the hall, a few minutes later. Both stood in the doorway watching the Cook wreck the kitchen, still snarling and flushed with rage, feet leaving red smears on the glass-scattered floor. Miss Pauling stepped daintily over a snarled pile of silverware. "Grab her," she said, jerking her head, "before she runs out of things to throw."

The Heavy waded into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around the Cook, who started screaming at the top of her lungs, breaking her snarled, spitting rant. He sighed, then turned them both around. Clearing an area with his foot, he slid down to the floor on the least wrecked side of the room, holding her to his chest with an arm and rubbing her head gently with his free hand.

When she finally stopped screaming, then crying, then swearing, the base was dead silent. Miss Pauling stuck her head out of the door, noticing the lingering crowd.

"She didn't take the news well, did she," the Soldier said, amusement making a comic mask of his features. "I told her, but she didn't believe me."

Miss Pauling looked at him, the skin beside her eyes tight with hate and the urge to simply get rid of the man. "I can't imagine why."

"Oh," he said, lightly, "we're good company when we want to be. She certainly appeared to like some of it."

Miss Pauling stared him, an eyebrow crooking and the edges of her lips turning down. "That," she said sharply, "I doubt. Tell me something. Are you even capable of toning your psychopathy down enough to consider someone else's pleasure or comfort?"

The Soldier put his hand to his chest, scratching absently. "I could, but why would I? That's sort of the point of psychopathy, as I'm sure you know. We're the last man"—he nodded at her guns—"or woman standing, by any means necessary. How many have you clean up over the years?"

Miss Pauling looked at him, expression draining from her face and leaving it flat, with her voice. "Enough."

"So, hundreds? Thousands?"

"As many as the company asks me to."

"Forever and ever, killing. Sounds like our job, only you get to travel while we stay chained here like bad dogs." He laughed, pleased with his own analogy, and barked at her. "Why should any of us be good little puppies?"

"I could," said Miss Pauling, "fix your problem permanently."

He smiled sweetly. "And where would you find a replacement soldier who wasn't on someone's watch list? Where would you find someone in this snoopy age who could disappear to the middle of nowhere?"

She shrugged. "Plenty of homeless vets hanging about."

The Soldier smiled at her nastily. "Would they survive this? People cry and crack so easily these days. Our television is full of people crying over this small thing or that, a nation of children looking for daddy."

Miss Pauling took a deep breath and let it out slowly. _I am going to find your replacement_ , she thought, _and I'm going to kill you myself, if I get to you before your teammates or that poor woman does_. "You are not irreplaceable. And your teammates have some scores to settle with you."

The Soldier turned, looking at the men around him. "Well? Anyone upset and want to talk about it up close and personal?"

The Heavy cleared his throat from the kitchen floor. "Take the conversation somewhere else for a little while."

Miss Pauling held up a finger. "I'm not done with the girl talk," she said, over her shoulder.

Looking around the hall, she said, "Well, gentlemen, if you have scores to settle, get it over with. However, and I'll repeat myself, respawn is not off for all of you."

The Soldier spread his hands. "It'll come back on at some point. Anyone who feels like getting even can try. They'll fail, but they can try."

The Spy snorted and shimmered out of sight.

The Medic looked around. "You can, of course, try, but if I am no longer here, I cannot patch up the results of you trying." With that, he turned on his heel and stalked back toward the surgery.

The Soldier waited a few more seconds. "That's what I thought." He looked over at Miss Pauling, pointing a long finger at her and coming within inches of her chest. "Don't both of you wander off on me, now."

Miss Pauling smiled mirthlessly and reached for her gun butts. The Soldier shrugged and backed away, finally turning and stalking off in irritation, muttering under his breath.

The Engineer hovered, uncertain. Behind him, the Sniper leaned against the wall, eyes shaded by his hat, watching intently.

The Demo sighed. "I'd best go rig my door to blow if that lot is desperate for firepower." Muttering to himself, he stalked down the hall.

The Sniper pushed off the wall. "Some of this could have been avoided if you had designated some sort of command structure to deal with that asshole, instead of letting him decide he was the boss." He pulled his hands from his pockets and tipped his hat back slightly. "If the brothers had any military experience at all, they'd have known not to do that shit. Hell, if they had any management experience, they'd have known better."

"Why," said Miss Pauling drily. "Are you volunteering?"

The Sniper snorted. "Hell, no. He's your worry, not mine."

Miss Pauling rubbed her forehead. "Tell me about it."

He shrugged. "I'm going to go lock myself in my camper until respawn is back on just in case one of those assholes gets bored or needs to take it out on someone." The Sniper turned and walked down the hall surprisingly quietly, his boots making a faint click as they hit the floor and his head turning slightly as he scanned for threats.

The Scout and Engineer looked at the Pyro, who stared into the kitchen. "I'm dying," he said quietly, to see what happens next."

"What happens next," said Miss Pauling, "is that I have to have a chat with our little friend here."

The Cook looked up. "No, I have to have a chat with them." She tilted her head up, looking at the Heavy. "Do you trust them?"

The Heavy blinked. "They have the most to lose if things continue on the way they have been." He looked at the Engineer, Scout, and Pyro. "The Pyro defends himself best, but they have weathered the worst of those three. So, if this has to do with those fucks, I'd trust this group."

The Pyro looked at him, cocking his head. "Are we a conspiracy? How do we keep those three from finding out?"

Miss Pauling smiled grimly and pulled a small, slim remote from her pocket. Looking down, she typed a combination into it. "Somewhere," she said, "both Spies just discovered that their cloak no longer works." She tucked the remote back into a pocket in her skirt. "We wouldn't give them a tool like that without a leash."

She looked over at the Cook. "I'll give you a moment of privacy for this, but that conversation we had is none of their business." Miss Pauling jerked her thumb over her shoulder, looking at the men in the hallway. "Go have a very short conversation. I'll watch the door."

After they had filed in, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it, waiting.

The Cook took a breath. "Let go, Heavy." When he did, she sighed, resting her elbows on her knees. "I've been here all of 24 hours and I have to say, I don't know how you've all managed."

The Pyro shifted, then ran a hand across his stubble. "You do what you have to."

"It…" She paused, selecting her words carefully. "I need to ask some questions about things, and I need you to answer me as honestly as possible. I need to know what those three are afraid of, or at least what they don't want to do."

In the resulting silence, she said, "I know the Soldier is afraid of Miss Pauling. How about the Medic and the Spy?"

The Scout looked down at his feet and mumbled, then cleared his throat and spoke more loudly. "He's afraid she's a better killer than he is. It's why he keeps trying to intimidate her. He's got a… thing about women." He looked around at the men in the kitchen, flinching.

Hysterical laughter burbled up in the Cook's throat and she swallowed heavily. "I can see that," she finally said.

Behind her, the Heavy rumbled. "Men such as he have problems with anything they think soft or weak." His fingers squeezed his thighs for a moment and she put her hands on his, patting them gently. The Heavy froze, then wrapped his fingers around hers and held them.

The Engineer spoke quietly, watching their hands with an expression that vacillated between pain and hunger. "He's not alone. The Spy hates her because she knows some of his secrets." He followed her arms up to her face. "She knows most of our secrets."

She looked over at the Pyro, leaning against the counter— _we'll settle things later_ , she thought. He shrugged, watching the coolness on her face when she looked at him. "I don't spend that much time with any of them, but I don't think the Medic cares. I don't think the Medic cares about anything but those birds he has and getting to play with something. The company is there, as far as he's concerned, to keep him out of trouble. And we're here to relieve his anxiety."

The Heavy shifted behind the Cook. "He's a coward. He inflicts pain but hides from it behind me. He is afraid of her now that she's hurt him."

She couldn't stop herself from shuddering at the word play. The Pyro watched, eyes narrowed. "So he's spent a little time with you."

The Cook looked up at him, face blank for a moment before responding. "Yes. He has."

The whole room, Heavy included, grew silent—memories, separate and united by the common figure in them. She shook herself and looked up, eyes haunted. "How are you all planning on dealing with respawn being off?"

The Engineer summed the situation up for everyone with one word: hiding.

She looked at him, considering. "Could you rig turrets to identify only a few people on this team?"

He blinked, straightening. "I'm using color recognition."

"Can you use anything else?"

The Engineer scratched his head. "Actually, it wouldn't be that hard to set up some sort of RFID transmitter and receiver. I haven't before because they're… they retaliate. But if respawn is off and one of them dies because of a turret, they can't retaliate." For a moment, in his sunken eyes, she saw hope flare. _Miss Pauling asked me to remind them that it doesn't have to be like this_ , she thought. _At least I actually want to do that_.

"It'll keep them out of your workshop," she said, smiling at him. "Can you help anyone else?"

He tapped his chin with a finger, his eyes unfocusing. "Yeah. I mean, I could give a few other people tags that would let them go in there."

"Lady," the Pyro said, hostility clear in his voice, "don't get me wrong, it's nice that you're trying to plan and better if you're around to be fucked, but why the fuck do you care? Miss Pauling is going to take you back, isn't she?"

The Cook looked at him for a second, face bleak. "No, she probably isn't. They can't find anyone to stay here, and she seems to think that…" She trailed off and looked through the Pyro.

He stared at her, hostility becoming a faint sadness. "Jesus, lady. I mean, I'm happy you're here distracting them, but that is some harsh shit."

The Pyro watched her shoulders slump. "I know," she murmured.

"At some point," he said, "I want to know where they dug you up that you haven't gone fully psychotic by now. They've been hard enough on me. If I had to deal with the shit you and these fucks had, I'd have gone the full 'here's Johnny,' axe and all, on the base."

The Cook took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and reaching up absently to play with the bristle on her head. "How do they feel about each other?"

The Scout scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floor. "The Soldier hates the Medic, but the Spy can work with both of them and sometimes get them to work together."

"Why," the Cook said slowly, "does the Soldier hate the Medic?"

"Because the Medic was told to drug him when he first came and played with him a bit. Did he ever tell you what they found him doing when he was arrested?" The Scout wrapped his arms around himself, his expression pinched and pale.

"No," the Cook said, paling as her imagination fed her the likely reasons.

"He'd been collecting people at this cabin he had in the woods. He played with them for awhile. He didn't kill them, he just… broke their heads. And then he'd drive them into town and just let them go. He kept collecting more and more important people, like he was daring someone to catch him. When they bought him here, he was quiet at first, because they needed to transport him and they doped him up. But the Medic started to play with him while he was doped up."

The Cook's skin crawled, standing in high bumps all over her body, the hairs raised.

The Scout continued. "The Medic was lazy with him, and he got loose. The Soldier carved holes all over the Medic's body, just kept hacking and hacking. When he figured out where respawn was, he ambushed the Medic for a week, cutting him to ribbons even when they were supposed to be on the field. They had to send Miss Pauling in to break it up. Since then, they've been real careful around each other."

"Then how," she swallowed heavily, "how does the Spy get them to get along?"

"The Spy cleans up nice, and he's real good at getting people to do stuff. He's pretty charming when he wants to be, and he comes up with ideas that the Soldier likes. And he's good at getting people to come with him, so he helps the Medic find someone to play with." The Scout's fingers dug into his sides. "He lies real easy, like he cares about you, and then you can't get away."

She looked at the expression on his face, now familiar rage rising again and shoving away her fear. "What if they didn't trust the Spy anymore?"

The Scout rocked back on his heels, thinking. "They'd get worse, maybe? Or better? The Spy is good at managing them, at giving them something to do. If they didn't have him, they'd get really tense. I don't think the Soldier is very good at controlling himself, and the Medic gets spacey and irritable."

"He would probably," said the Pyro quietly, "stop healing us altogether. He doesn't like to heal people. It's like he can't resist hurting someone, and if he doesn't have someone to hurt, he hurts everybody."

The Cook pulled her knees up, putting her chin on them. "That would upset Blutarch, wouldn't it? 'Cause it would bring your kill counts down. I mean, once you're all back on the field."

After a moment, the Heavy cleared his throat. "How do we get them to distrust the Spy?"

The Cook sat quietly. "I think I can do that one myself. But you should probably all spend this time in the Engineer's lab, with your tags. I'm a new toy, and no matter what else they do, they probably won't kill me. And if they do, I don't have to put up with any of this anymore." She reached up, cradling her face in both hands. "I win either way," she said, voice muffled.

The Pyro looked down at her, fine lines around his faded green eyes becoming more pronounced. "Be careful. They're not easy to fool. And try not to die."

"I don't think they will be," she said slowly, shoulders hunching. "I'm not sure I care if they kill me, but I'll try not to antagonize them too much."

"I don't understand," the Engineer said. "Why you? What can you do?"

She looked up at him, clutching her knees, a bitter smile on her face. "I'm no threat at all. I can do anything."


	11. I Can't Watch This and Care

The faces around her, as a tableau, were a mix of horror and pity—the Cook wanted to shake them all, to ask them why they believed they could live with it but she could not choose to die while trying to prevent the slow grind of atrocity from continuing to wear them through. The body of the Heavy behind her, tight and angry, spoke his opinion for him. On the Engineer's face, she could see a mixture of horror, relief, and shame, the familiar response of empathy to feeling relieved in response to someone else's pain. The Scout simply looked weary—the faltering steps of someone who had walked long past exhaustion and into the darkness with the knowledge that each step meant pouring out the energy he should be using to live. The Pyro considered her, solemn and almost respectful. As she watched him, he ducked his head slightly in a bow, made private by the distraction of the men around her.

After a moment, she heard the Heavy. "Don't," he said simply. "Just don't."

She took a breath, searching again for words. "There are things that I cannot stand aside and watch," she said, finally. "There are things I cannot bear to know are happening and not try to do something about it. Don't ask me to stand aside."

The Heavy turned her around on his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "Don't," he repeated, scanning her face. "This is not your problem, and nothing worth dying over."

The Cook smiled at him, small and troubled. "If it helps you," she said, "think of this as me trying to do some good and escape the contract at the same time."

"You and I both know your motivation here isn't entirely selfish." The Heavy's fingers tightened on her arms and he gave her a small shake. "Don't be a martyr. We don't need any heroes here."

She leaned forward and kissed him gently. "Yes," she said, cradling his face in her hands. "Yes, you do. Let me do what I can. I've already died ten times on the field. I know what I face."

The Cook leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder, and did not add what she was thinking— _we are already dead, all of us_. _Let me try to bring something back to life._

Miss Pauling knocked on the door and opened it, looking at the men gathered around her and the Cook leaning on the Heavy's shoulders. "You're done," she said gently. "Everybody out except the Cook and Heavy."

The Scout, Pyro, and Engineer filed out quietly, and Miss Pauling shut the door behind her. To the Heavy, she said, "I can't let her stay here without respawn, so I'm going to have to take her back. I'm fairly sure the Soldier is going to pitch a fit about this, and I can only shoot to wound. I'm going to need you to borrow the medigun and patch him up. I can't let him die. I don't think he'll take it out on you as much as he would on any of them."

The Cook shook her head and turned away from the Heavy, his arms still around her. "I can't leave yet."

Miss Pauling looked down at her, plainly astonished. "Were you not paying attention when I said the RED respawn is down? If you need it rougher, I assure you that a few words to the Spy, Sniper, or Medic on RED will fix that problem quickly."

The Cook sighed— _does she really not know the difference between what these men do and that_ , she thought. "There is something I have to do," she said, voice firming as she spoke.

Miss Pauling blinked, then leaned down. "There's something you need to understand. I've spent more time cleaning up after those three than I spend on the entirety of the RED team, even with having to bribe women because the RED Sniper got drunk and pissed on them without their permission, or because the RED Sniper and Spy went the full predator on some poor woman at a bar. There are killers, and then there are rabid dogs. Those three are rabid dogs."

The Cook huddled into herself, drawing her knees into her chest, and the Heavy shifted to wrap his arms around her knees. "I know," she murmured. "But I still have to do it."

Miss Pauling stood up, throwing her hands into the air with disgust. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to find someone fitting your description? Do you have any idea how lucky we were that you happened to run into a RED employee?"

The Cook blinked, knees dropping. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember going to that play party in Atlanta?"

"What, two years ago?"

"Yes, two years ago. Do you remember the scene you played through?"

The Cook flushed up to her ears. She remembered—she'd had two or three beers and ended up bottoming to a retired Army officer. She'd told him she liked it rough, and he'd told her he could make that happen. He'd beaten her to bleeding and she'd kept asking him for more. Growling at him, begging, threatening, pleading for more, she'd simply let herself react to the goad of pain without the normal restraints she put on herself and her reactions. He had backed away, a strange expression on his face, and called the monitor in to let her out of the restraints, then left. The monitor had banned her from the club entirely, leaving her to clean herself and go home, aching with overwhelming frustration and feeling once again rejected.

"I see," said Miss Pauling acerbically, "that you do remember. You were recommended to us, and I quote 'because in my thirty years of doing this, I have never seen anyone so completely deranged.'"

The Cook put both arms over her head. Against her, the Heavy twitched and she wondered briefly if he would withdraw, having heard what kind of person she could be. She resisted the urge to look at his face, to see if the same disgust she'd come to expect would appear on it.

"We investigated you precisely because the kind of mentality you displayed during that scene was thought to be able to carry you through being able to die repeatedly. And we found you to be isolated, capable of managing fragile personalities, capable of violence, adaptable, intelligent, and completely amoral by normal standards, though very moral by your own." Miss Pauling put her hands on her hips. "I'm not convinced that you'd fight for your life right now if you were in the right circumstances, and I'm not willing to let you try to kill yourself. The damage that would do to the RED team would be serious, and I'm convinced the damage it would do here is just as bad."

The Heavy's arms tightened around her as he spoke. "Go on. We'll deal with it on our own." He let go and pushed her away gently.

Looking at his face, she saw a goodbye that was both regretful and final.

"No," the Cook said. "No, I can't just leave you all here, and leave things they way they are. I can't leave the Engineer here to be raped. I can't leave the Scout here with the Soldier acting like his daddy. I can't leave you here, lonely."

Miss Pauling ran her fingers through her hair, scattering bobby pins in a tinkling floor on the floor and turning her hair into a haphazard mane. "Goddamn it, of all the times for that stupid sense of self-sacrifice to pop up. You cannot help anyone here by dying. You cannot make things better by laying down and absorbing all the violence those three can dish out."

"What're you going to do," said the Cook drily. "Shoot me?"

Miss Pauling looked down at her, breathing heavily, fingers twitching. The Cook could see it in her face, the years of shooting people to solve problems, the comfort of a final solution, and the knowledge that this was the one case in which shooting the only person she could shoot fixed nothing. When Miss Pauling finally spoke, her voice was tight with rage.

"Fine," she said. "If you are so desperate to die, I'll let you. But we're taking you to get scanned into this system first. And god help you, when they kill you, it's this base you'll spawn to. Over and over, you'll pop back up in this goddamn locker room. And because if you want to go to hell you can do it on your own time, I'm not coming back until the goddamn RED system is back up. I'm not watching the tapes, I'm not paying attention to shit, because I don't want to see it."

The Cook stood up, her arms wrapped around herself. "I can't leave things the way they are," she said. "I cannot leave things like this and still feel as if my life has worth."

Miss Pauling stepped forward, between the Heavy's legs, and put her face inches from the Cook's. "You are a fool, and you're about to cost me years of keeping these shithouses running. Do you have any idea what effect this will have on the RED team? And for what? For men you don't even know." She hooked a slim finger through the ring on the collar, pulling the Cook's head down slightly.

"Is this really something you want to continue," Miss Pauling spat. "Are you enjoying being raped? Do you like it when they break your ribs and nearly kill you? Are you really this"—she yanked the ring down further, pulling the Cook's head and making her squint up at Miss Pauling's red, angry face—"stupidly suicidal?"

The Cook pushed her head back up, the muscles in the back of her neck burning with the strain. "They haven't been able to fix it on their own. You haven't been able to fix it. I'd like to try."

Miss Pauling froze, the anger fading from her face, replaced by something like pity. She pulled her finger from the ring and wiped her hand on her skirt, unconsciously trying to remove from herself the visceral memory of the woman in front of her. "Jesus fucking save me from self-sacrifice and masochism." She sighed. "I will be back," she said quietly, "to clean up what's left. I always am."

"When," said the Cook, "has anyone ever tried this before?"

Miss Pauling looked at her for a moment, then turned and left, but not before the Cook saw the shadow of grief in her eyes. The Heavy pulled himself up behind her using the counter.

"You should have left," he said, quietly. "But now I have to escort you to get scanned by the Medic." He sighed. "I'm going to be more distant, now, because I can't… I can't watch this and care." He turned his head, refusing to look at her, and worked a finger into the ring before walking quickly out of the room, dragging her along after him.


	12. An Anatomy Lesson

Miss Pauling, good as her word, left the base directly, her roadster peeling a spray of gravel from the sandy road. The Heavy paused in the hallway in front of the surgery, looking down at the Cook—pale, fragile, the red fur of her head sweat-matted, and the eyes turned up to him. Acceptance, fear, resignation: all there in the brown of her eyes, in the solemnity of her expression. She gave him a small encouraging smile, and he could see what it cost her to try and offer him some condolence. He searched for something to say to her, some final way to talk her out of it, to get her to walk the empty sand between the bases and simply go home. He wanted to tell her that the price was too high, that what she might pay and what she might buy were so incomparable. That, too, she absorbed from him, a sternness slowly filling her face with resolve. The Heavy sighed, a gust of air that had everything and nothing he could say in it. She patted his hand where it held the ring and gently leaned back, pulling them both toward the doors. He closed his eyes, walling himself away, pushing at the emotion that wanted to cut him down. When the Heavy opened his eyes, they were angry.

This, too, she accepted, knowing it for what it was—rage to save the self, a wall going up between them.

He pushed her backward through the doors with the ring, dragging her to the Medic and shoving her stumbling to the ground on the Medic's boots. The Medic stepped back with an expression of annoyance.

"Pauling said to scan her," the Heavy barked, glaring at the Medic.

The Medic's eyebrows shot up over his mild eyes. "I see we're going to have a guest for awhile. I suppose it makes sense, since they don't have respawn." She scrambled to her feet and turned to face the Medic, who flicked the ring on the collar with a look of mild amusement. "That man always did make things unnecessarily complicated."

The Medic walked toward a wall-mounted device she recognized from her first company physical. "Well, come on, toy."

The Heavy took a deep breath, as if thinking about speaking, then turned on his heel and left, hitting the door with his hand hard enough to make it boom against the wall outside, rebounding repeatedly. The Cook walked toward the Medic, knees shaking. _At least I'm doing this of my own will_ , she thought. _I only wish I could walk calmly_.

He looked her up and down, a sardonic smile hovering around his mouth. "I'm scanning you, not playing with you. There's no need to piss yourself with fear." The Medic pointed at a tape mark on the floor. "Stand just there and don't move during scanning."

With a grunt, he pulled down a screen, aligning it with her head. "Hold." He stepped back, flicking a switch. The machine thumped, and he stepped forward again to pull the screen down, aligning it with her torso, repeating the process until he'd scanned her entire body.

"And now," he said, "I'll need a blood sample."

She held her arm out, bracing at the elbow, while he dug in a stand next to him and pulled out a rubber strip, needle, and vial. When he turned, she had very nearly stopped the tremors by tensing her arm. The Medic saw the faint tremors despite her best efforts and gave a brief, secretive smile. "Don't move," he said, and tied the rubber strip off on her arm, waiting for the vein to rise. With a twist of his hand, he slid the needle into her arm and probed inside her arm.

"I could," he said, conversationally, "have spent more time learning to do this sort of thing, but little things like finding a vein are usually done by a nurse or some other peon."

The Cook felt herself start to sweat with fear. "And you like the chance to dig," she said.

He twisted his hand again. "Oops," he said, watching the expression on her face change from determination to horror. "I think I nicked the vein, but I'm in."

As the vial filled, a swollen pocket of blood filled the skin around the puncture. When he pulled the needle and vial from her vein, a drop of blood trickled down her forearm. He watched it, a dreamy expression crossing his face.

"I'll have to enter this," he said, "then you'll be here, with us, in our system."

The Medic turned, humming to himself, and put the vial in a hopper. Pressing a quick array of buttons, he sighed happily, shoulders lowering.

"Now," he said, "you're here and in the system. But I wouldn't be much of a… doctor if I left the exam to this. Hop up on a table." The Medic reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a capped syringe.

The Cook backed away, eyes on his hands and the syringe in them.

"Surely," he said, "you don't want to wander the halls and find out what kind of men you're in here with."

"Can't be as bad as dying. Do you actually just carry around drugs?"

"Since respawn is off, yes. Death," he said, slowly advancing, "is not worse than rape for you. You won't die, you'll just wake up in the locker room. But I can promise you I'm not a rapist. I won't even touch that end of your body."

She backed into and scrambled around a table.

"For all you know," he said with a sharp-toothed grin, "this is a very nice anesthetic."

"For all I know," she said, "it'll just paralyze me."

He nodded, hair sliding across his forehead. "For all you know." He watched her intently as she continued to back up, feeling behind her for the door. "But I hear rape is worse. You would know. Is it worse than anything I might do? Is the Soldier really worse than this?"

The Cook froze for a moment, shocked by the comparison, and he dove for her hand, tucking it under his arm.

"I get so bored," he said, voice soft and pleased, and drove the needle into the pocket of blood on her arm. "So very, very bored."

She struggled for a second before she crumbled, limbs leaden and numb, dangling from the arm he still had tucked under his own. With a satisfied smile, he heaved her up over his shoulder and laid her gently on an exam table.

With the same, practiced efficiency, he strapped her down, then stopped to touch her face. "You were right," he said. "It was a paralytic. Oh, don't worry, I won't touch you while it's still strong enough to effect you." Leaning over on his elbows, he settled his head onto his hands, looking down at her.

"It's funny," he said. "You would think I'd like a paralyzed toy. After all, that's what surgery is—I get a toy, under tightly controlled circumstances, that can't raise its hand to fight back." He sighed, the warmth of his breath touching her stomach through the thermal. "But the fact is, once you've cut into someone who is alert enough to struggle, alert enough for their heart to pound and their lungs to labor, cutting into someone laid out like a doll just isn't the same."

He chuckled. "It does help to get the toy into the right position. But I'd prefer you to be able to cry and struggle."

"Right now, my voice should sound like I'm speaking at the top of a well. It echoes in your head, doesn't it?" The Medic bit his lower lip, smiling. "Part of the joy of this job is that lovely medigun—did you know I can cut most of your organs out of their cradles and lay them on your skin, and that thing will keep you alive? I'm going to show them to you. A little anatomy lesson." He paused. "They never did want me to teach. I'm glad. I always hated students."

The Medic stood up slightly, running a finger down the thermal. "I won't even cut this off until you're awake enough to struggle. I like the challenge of getting the clothes off without nicking the canvas." He pinched the fabric. "Not that this is much of a challenge, the one layer. But you'll fight me for it enough to give me some challenge, won't you?"

His restless fingers traced the straps. "Ordinarily, I'd call the Spy in for this, but I so rarely get solitary time with any toy any more. Genius loves an audience but you'll have to do."

She watched his eyes roving with his fingers, tugging at her wrists to straighten them, tugging an ankle, returning again to his elbows— _if I believed in hell_ , she thought as her heart labored, _I'd be among the damned_.

"Would you believe," he said, idly, "that most people stop fighting after the first few cuts. I hope you don't disappoint me. I'm hoping for a little more fight."

"I've always wondered," the Medic said, rubbing her stubble, "what other people see in sex." He reached down, cupping her breast through the shirt. "It does nothing for me, nothing like what people insist it should. This is a lump of fat and glandular tissue atop the thoracic skeleton and the pectoralis major muscles, attached by the Cooper's ligaments."

He pinched her nipple. "And this is a papilla, containing outlets for the dozen or so lactiferous ducts, capable of administering nourishment"—he shuddered delicately—"to infants."

The Medic paused there, fingers on her nipple. "It engorges with blood, stiffening, from contact." He watched her nipple harden with a curiosity that vacillated between clinical and active interest. "And people make noise when you touch these—pleasure." He put his elbows back down on the table beside her, watching her face.

"I experience it, the sensation of pleasure. I just don't associate it with the same things everyone else does. I've been tempted, over the years, to administer a penile plethysmograph and watch as much porn as possible simply to test how different I am. I am curious to see what else, if anything, I respond to, but it never seemed worth it."

She took a slightly deeper breath, and the Medic smiled, watching her pupils twitch. "It's short acting, that paralytic is. You'll be out of it enough to struggle, soon."

The Medic pushed himself upright, pulling the table under a ceiling mounted medigun. He wandered out of her vision, pulling a cart to the exam table, stripping his lab coat and vest off, and putting on a backward set of scrubs. He put on a cap and stepped back into her vision.

"You would not believe," he said, "how long it took me to figure out quite what makes me comfortable here. I even did this once naked—it was completely unsatisfactory. I seem to like the little reminders of the surgery best. Perhaps this is my version of the fig leaf, my sop to modesty."

The Medic uncapped a scalpel and snagged the Soldier's thermal with an ungloved finger. "Well," he said. "Struggle."

She could feel the strength trickling back into her arms and legs, but other than flexing her muscles slightly to check, she refused to move. "No," she said quietly. "There's no use." _Even if you kill me_ , she thought, _I don't have to give you the satisfaction_. _I have died before and will die again._

The Medic frowned. "Don't make this difficult for me, or I'll make this difficult for you."

"There's no point," she repeated. "I can't get out, and you're just going to kill me and send me through respawn."

The Medic's lips pressed together, into a tight line. "I suppose," he said after a brief pause, "that I'll have to give you some incentive to resist."

He pulled the thermal up roughly and sawed through the chest, then both sleeves, and laid it back against the table. His hand hovered over the switch to the medigun, but he decided to leave it off, then laid a single shallow cut across one of her breasts. Other than to wince and watch the scalpel, she simply looked at him.

The Medic's shoulders rose, and the next cut was much deeper, cutting through the thin layer of fat on the side of her breast to the layer of muscle over her ribs. She hissed, tears prickling in her eyes, and tensed, but did not struggle. Blood pooled between her breasts, then a thin rivulet fell to the floor from the plastic mattress.

The Medic's eyes narrowed, and he laid the scalpel against the skin of her stomach, slowly sawing into the skin. She screamed, but locked her muscles and refused to struggle. The small puddle under the exam table grew. He could see the animal panic trying to rise, the pulse thudding in her neck above the tight edge of the collar and the jumping veins in her arms. He could see the humming tension in her legs and arms, the cut muscles in her stomach trying to contract. The Medic put the scalpel back on the cart next to him and dug a finger into the hole he'd sawn.

The high, extended screech coming out of her mouth became a gag and she retched, torn muscles spasming around his fingers. She was so tense she could feel the muscle pulling against itself, a popping, tearing sensation at her elbows and ankles, the skin immediately blackening. The Medic watched her, mouth gaping with disbelief. "You've torn the Achilles and probably the extensor tendons." His fingers stilled inside her. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

The Cook said nothing, breaths shallow with pain and that same, lucid fear of some vital organ spilling out of the hole he'd made in her torso. She was light-headed, the only thing tethering her to her body the hideous pain of his fingers, burning, tearing in her chest. Even still, she could feel her body trying to panic, to twist and force the fingers out of her. Her heart fluttered in her chest, straining, trying to get the little oxygen she could take in out to her muscles, which thrummed like a wire under tension.

The Medic watched her face, an unhappy scowl crumpling his. "React." He wriggled his fingers, punching down into the muscle. "React!"

Her eyes started to flutter, lack of oxygen and the creeping puddle of blood beneath the table slowly dragging her down despite his fingers. The Medic swore and flicked on the medigun with his spare hand, periodically recutting to keep his fingers from becoming a part of her flesh as it tried to knit around him. The swelling on her arms went down, and she reddened, but still breathed shallowly and lay there, humming with tension. She did not move, just looked at him, blood hazing her vision.

The Medic widened the cut, stabbing and ripping to the sound of her screams, reaching inside her past the sacs of her lungs, squeezing one to the side and suffocating her, reaching for her heart under the cage of her ribs. He could just barely brush it with his fingers, the fibrous walls around it fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird against his fingertips.

And still, she stared at him, eyes wide and dry, the pain passing mere tears and on into some incomprehensible place where it took all her will to keep her eyes open and her body still, the sclera blushed as the veins tried to bring oxygen to the eyes that watched him. _Endure_ , her thoughts tolled. _Endure_.

"Stop looking at me." The Medic reached for a bone saw and brandished it at her. "Stop staring at me like that."

"Stop it!" The Medic lowered the saw and her screams became a high, broken screech as the whine of the saw vibrated her chest.

"Stop looking at me!" He pulled the saw away, her vision now hazed with black, a tunnel that was slowly, slowly closing. She fought to keep her eyes open.

"You can't go into shock," he said. "I have the medigun on you."

He could see her pupils blow out, the expression slowly fading from her face, but she did not close her eyes. Her mouth sagged open, too dry for saliva, the skin dulling. "No," he said. "No, you can't do that."

Her eyes finally rolled up in her head and he swore profusely, then pulled his fingers from her chest in disgust, letting the medigun knit it up. "Fucking shock," he said. "This will not do. I need some sort of help to get the right reaction."


	13. Lust and Despair

Voices again, angry, boiled on the surface of her hearing—sounds that slid slowly into focus, becoming individual and then particular, becoming words. A debate, two voices argued bitterly, and fabric rustled near her ear. The Spy and Medic argued, the Spy's voice closer to her head. The plastic of the mattress crinkled, tilting toward a weight. _Elbows_ , she thought, _or perhaps an arm, someone leaning on the mattress near my head_.

"It's not pain," the Spy hissed. "Sufficiently trained and with the right kind of person, pain can be resisted—any interrogator can tell you that much. It's fear that breaks a person, much more than the pain. You have to make her fear you to get the panic reactions you want."

The Medic sighed. "She knows she'll respawn, so I'm not sure she has any particular fear of death. It's different when they don't know they are going to stay dead." The legs of a chair squealed against the floor and he spoke, frustration making his voice ragged. "I need someone to respond to me."

The plastic of the mattress crinkled again, cloth moving. "If you want panic, you must find out what she is afraid of. You can't just saw away at her." There was a pause. "The Soldier scares her. You might ask him what he's done."

The Medic snorted. "I'm not interested in dealing with that man."

"I know how you feel about him," the Spy said, a thread of annoyance making his voice harsh. "But you have to admit that his little games are effective."

The Medic's voice grew strident. "They were effective on people he abducted off the streets, on people who don't enjoy pain as a hobby and aren't in the respawn system. This is a completely different case."

"What," the Spy said softly, "do you want from her?" Cloth brushed her upper arm, as if someone had turned standing very close to her.

The Medic took a short, sharp breath in. "I've told you what I want. I want relief! I want to sate this craving, to stop my obsessions for a time." His voice grew muffled. "I want some peace."

"You want," said the Spy softly, his voice oddly intimate, "terror."

The Medic moaned, the noise fading into a sigh. "I need her to react. I need her to fight me, to stop staring at me, to stop trying to control things."

"In that case," the Spy said gently, "you'll want to talk to the Soldier. Think about what he's put her through, what he's made her do. He knows what buttons to push. Let him work her up before you play with her."

The Medic hissed. "Fine. Whatever. I just won't be in the room until he's done."

"If it makes you feel better." _There is something_ , she thought, _between the two of them. He sounds too soft for there not to be_.

The ambient noise in the room grew close as the Spy turned. He bent close to her, whispering in her ear. "I heard your breathing change a little while ago. I know you're awake. You might as well open your eyes."

The Cook looked up at him. Her eyes itched maddeningly, something dry and spiky in their corners. "What do you want," she muttered.

He smiled, the skin around his dark eyes wrinkling, and didn't respond. She was again reminded of a shark, something with rows and rows of serrated teeth pulling a body in. The intimacy of his voice—she didn't believe for a minute that he actually loved the Medic, but the conversation and the way he'd elicited a confession from the Medic made her wonder what the nature of the relationship could be. The mercenary part of her mind, prompted by their voices, added those to the Scout's statements. _What is better_ , she thought, recognition flaring, _than controlling those who cannot defend themselves?_

"Let me guess," she said acidly, watching the Spy's face. "There's no better power than controlling those who would control."

The smile slowly faded and his gaze grew probing, sweeping her face like a weight. "Not bad," he whispered. "Not a bad mind in there. I can't wait to play with it."

"What are you whispering," the Medic asked, standing and walking forward. "Oh, I see she's awake."

"She is," the Spy said over his shoulder. "I'm going to go get the Soldier."

She watched the Medic standing near the Spy, just within the easy ability to touch. As the Spy passed him, the Medic made a small, groping gesture, an involuntary twitch as of someone seeking comfort. The Spy merely evaded it, an easy swivel of his hips mid-stride that carried him out of reach. The Medic stayed staring after him for a moment before turning, a hungry, angry expression on his face.

"I'm going to get what I need from you one way or another," he growled. "Even if I have to work with that man."

"Are you still afraid of him?" Her voice was mercifully cruel, perhaps with the cushion of shock. "Are you still afraid what he'll do to you?" The Medic froze, his nostrils flaring with his breath. She could see him blanch, could see his pupils contract.

"He misses you," the Cook continued, lying with the scalpel of his fear. "He wants to cut you again."

"How did you know," he whispered. She could see his restless hands clench, and with the ice of shock knew she would feel guilt when it wore off. But guilt that would not prevent her from twisting the knife.

"He talks about you when the Spy isn't around," she said, measuring the effect of her words. "It's why I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of him, and I know you are, too."

The Medic flinched, high spots of color standing out on his cheeks. _Fear_ , she thought. _But also pride, genius that he believes he is_. "Are you going to let him do your dirty work for you," she taunted. "You let the Spy do your dirty work."

She could see the words sink in, could see it in the cords of his neck, pulled tight. "The Spy fetches for you both for one reason," she said, willing her words to wound. "He controls you by your urges. He—"

The Medic clapped a hand over her mouth. "No," he whispered, his expression beseeching her. "No, you stop talking now."

The Cook slowly shook her head, watching the color sweep across the Medic's face. His eyes narrowed, and she could see him grind his teeth. The Medic's free hand dug into the plastic near her head, sharply rustling. He panted and the fingers over her mouth dug into her cheeks.

"No," he said again. "No, you can't play games with my head."

She simply stared at him, unblinking, watching his face struggle and change, watching him get angry. When the Spy returned, towing the Soldier, the Medic dug his fingernails into her face, popping through the skin, and turned his head.

"Don't let her talk," he growled.

The Spy chuckled, and the Medic's arm shook with tension. "Oh, it'll be fine. I'm sure she doesn't have anything important to say."

The Medic swore and pulled his hand from her face, leaving five small crescents in her cheeks. He stomped out of the room without another word, and the Spy watched him go, thoughtfully.

"What did you say," he asked the Cook. "He's a touchy man at the best of times, but even for him, that was abrupt."

She smiled, feeling her lips stretch until her canines were exposed, and refused to answer. The Spy answered her smile with his own, their faces a mirror for each other. She wondered if he understood what she was doing. He wondered if she knew how little whatever she had done would matter.

"Well," the Spy said, "I can see this will be an entertaining evening." Staring at the small cuts on her face, he continued. "The Doctor has already started without us, I see. But we'll catch up."

The Soldier cleared his throat. "I don't want to play in here. I don't like being around that fucker's stuff, especially not while respawn is down."

The Spy reached forward to the buckles on the straps, working the stiff, sticky leather through the buckle. While he was close, the Cook whispered. "Do you think they know what you're doing to them?"

Without changing expression, the Spy slapped her, making her ears ring, and went back to the buckles. With some effort, he managed to get them open and peeled her off the sticky pool beneath her, the sting of her skin coming off the tacky plastic making her hiss.

"Holy shit," the Soldier said. "He really went to work on you, didn't he, Sweetie?"

The Cook stared at his face rather than look down at the width of the puddle on the mattress and beneath the bed. The Spy clamped his fingers into her jaw and forced her head down so she could see the tacky, browning puddles around the bed. The bed itself was nearly covered, blood in sticky pools and streaks from the top to where her feet would have been—a halo of gore.

"Have a look," the Spy said. "It's all yours, after all."

The room swam, walls coming in, and her face went cold.

"That's better," he said, releasing her jaw. "It sets the right tone."

"Does the Medic have an emergency shower somewhere? She's caked in the stuff." The Soldier made a face. "And he's fucked up the collar."

The Spy shrugged. "Hell if I know, but it's probably a bad time to dig through his room. Besides, it won't hurt her to stagger through the halls like this. It'll be a morale boost." He paused. "Well, it'll boost my morale."

"Fine," the Soldier said. "We can use my shower, but don't touch any of my stuff, Honey. You're a mess." He slapped a hand against his thigh—a man calling a bitch. "Come 'ere."

The Cook stumbled toward him, feeling the dried blood crackle on her back and legs as she moved. Her hair, what little there was, was stiff, and her skin itched. The Soldier set off without looking back, knowing she'd heel. She reeled as she followed, leaving bloody handprints and smudged lines on the walls. In his room, she staggered toward the shower, not waiting for him to turn on the water, and sat in the bathtub, waiting.

The Soldier sighed. "She ain't going to be very lively. I know the medigun heals the body, but it's going to be work to get her there from here." Looking down at her, he murmured, "told you I was the good guy."

From the other room, the Spy called, "So let's see your technique. Think of it as a challenge."

The Cook made a faint noise, almost like speech, and looked at him pleadingly. Surprised, the Soldier bent down. "What was that, Rosie?"

When he was close enough, she wrapped her arms around him and slid her tongue into his mouth. The Soldier froze, and she rubbed the blood on her arms over his back and shoulders, making a mess of his shirt. He kissed her back hesitantly for a second before pushing her away and standing up.

"Shit," he said, turning his shirt collar and peering at his shirt in the mirror. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? Did you want me to get in the shower with you?"

She simply touched herself, looking at him. The expression on his face—a sneer of disbelief—looked so like one of the BLU Scout's expressions that she almost lost her resolve, but the speed at which it became simple, arrogant lust saved her from pity. Keeping eye contact, he pulled his collar apart with both hands, neatly ripping the shirt in half. A quick wriggle slid the shirt from his shoulders, and he watched her face as he put his hands on his belt buckle.

"Is this what you want, Rosie-girl? Did you miss me while the Doctor was playing with you?" _Fits and starts, Rosie_ , he thought, _fits and starts, but it'll work out in the end._

She forced herself to watch his hands undo the belt, to watch it slide from the loops and watch him feed the buttons through their holes. Somewhere inside her, hate warred with lust—perfect, harrowing lust to destroy him utterly, to wipe him and his memory from the face of the world. To sink her fingers into him and pull him to pieces like a broken toy. The Cook closed her eyes in brief, overwhelming despair. _They're all contagious_ , she thought. _Every single one of them_.

"That," the Soldier breathed, face close to hers, "is the expression I want. Lust and despair. Perfect."

When she opened her eyes, he was standing above her in the bathtub. "Stand up, Rosie."


	14. A Clever Play

The Soldier didn't offer her his hand, but she had not expected him to. The courtesies of a lover were not in his nature. Distantly, so distantly, she knew herself to be rationalizing— _it is not what I do, it is why I do it_. Posed on the edge of horror, she found herself bargaining again and again, promising herself anything and everything if only she could bear it, bear letting him see lust long enough to cloud his mind. More intimate than anything he'd done to her, even than the scalpel the Medic had wielded, letting him have this much was a more bitter violation. For a moment, she understood the RED Spy so well she wanted to hunt him down and rip him from chin to groin for teaching her how to survive under these conditions.

She pulled her gaze from the bony arch of the Soldier's toes up the muscle of his shins, the round cup of his knees, chest that spoke loudly of the gym, to his face and the triumph on it, the simple knowledge that he would win, inexorably as time marched on. And then she was someone else, the knife of despair opening her like a mouth and something new emerging.

The Cook pushed herself against the back wall of the tub, looking at him with lust made unstable by the riot between her ears. She reached for the taps, turning them on to send cherry-bright water in gouts down the drain. Wet, she reached for the Soldier, pulling his hips toward her.

Goosebumps swept his body, and he pulled the shower curtain across the tub, blocking the room. The silent space between them started to fill with steam and he watched her, knowing the profanity she was committing as she willingly touched him.

"No tears in you, are there Rosie-girl," he said softly. "Just that devastation." The Soldier laughed. "I didn't find many like you while I was hunting, but I kept the ones like you the longest. You're harder to break, because someone has already crawled into all the holes in you and broke you. But there's always one or two holes no one has found yet."

She dug her nails into his hips, closing the last inch and pressed herself against him, leaving blood and water where they touched. He let her, more than willing now that she thought herself to have reached the deepest part of despair. It was only then that he touched her like a lover, reaching gently for her to hold her close to him.

"Did lust win," he said. "Will you willingly let me crawl in all the holes inside you, thinking it'll end this just a little faster?"

The Cook stayed there, clinging to him, and he stroked her face. "It won't," he said softly. "Even when they take you back, it won't end."

The Soldier leaned down and kissed her, his stroking hers until they opened. "What you don't understand," he said, "is that anything you give me stays mine. And you will hate yourself for it."

She kissed him with the cruel edge of determination, and he only smiled and returned it. Then he turned her and grabbed the soap. Putting her hands on the wall under the spray, he washed her, hands cunning and kind.

 _Did I think I was terrified before_ , she thought distantly. She could feel herself responding, could feel the desire to please and be pleased if only it would stop him from hurting her anymore. The Soldier patiently scrubbed the last of the blood from her, hands lingering where he knew he could elicit noise, to make the lie she'd told real. And despite her best efforts, it became real, sensation rushing in where she had opened up just enough to make her changed behavior believable. Slowly, ever so slowly, she warmed, still hating him and yet reacting. She had to chew the inside of her cheek not to make a sound, warmth crawling up her spine with his fingers. He leaned on her to turn off the taps, pressing himself against her back.

The Soldier lingered there, draped over her, hands sweeping up to cup her breasts as if he loved them. "The body reacts, Rosie-girl, even if you don't want it to. Your body wants me to be kind, wants the pain to stop and to get the chance to relax. It'll change your mind for you, Honey. You'll keep rallying, but it'll be harder every time because you'll remember that it could feel good, if you'd just do what I tell you to do." _And then_ , he thought, _I'll wean you from even that, living in the hope that I might make you feel good if you obey. But even then, it won't be predictable_.

He straightened, still close enough to raise the fine hairs on her body, and reached for her hips. She yielded for just a moment before stiffening and he chuckled. "Bit by bit, Rosie."

The Cook turned and backed up, pressing herself to the tile behind her—volatile and acidic, nerves singing and screaming at the intimacy, at the creeping way that it had sneaked up on her. _I have to take it back_ , she thought. _I have to take control of this_.

She took a breath to speak and he reached out for her chin, tilting her face up. "You never did tell me who made all those broken places in your head. Not a boyfriend, but someone. Who?"

She shook her head at him stubbornly, fingers skating on the wall behind her.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll ask and watch your face. Father."

She simply stared at him, hate burning on her face.

"Brother."

She kept staring.

"Priest."

She couldn't stop the shadow on her face.

"That's a reaction, Rosie girl, but it's not quite as good a reaction as I want. So now I'm going to keep asking questions about that."

"Rector."

"Deacon."

"Preacher."

Her pupils dilated.

"So, now I ask a few more questions. Touch."

A slow flush started up her face. The Soldier chuckled.

"Sex."

The flush deepened and she started to picture killing the Soldier again. His eyebrows raised. "I wonder how old you were. Do you picture yourself on his lap, Rosie? Do your little legs dangle without touching the floor?"

She clamped her teeth together and he whistled through his teeth. "Now that, Rosie girl, is a hell of a hold to have over someone. I do love that you blush so clearly. It makes this much easier. Tell me something, Sweetie. Did you like it? Do you ever touch yourself and think about it?" He leaned down, closer to her up-tilted face. "Did you like servicing him? Did it hurt?"

Her blood roared in her ears— _if I don't stop him_ , she thought and then let the thought trail off, refusing to finish it. "Did you," she whispered, breath trembling, "know that the Spy is using you?"

He looked at her incredulously. "Of course he is. And I use him."

The Cook struggled to put words on it—the expressions on the Spy's face, the way he eagerly fed the Soldier ideas and kept him busy. _Control_ , she thought. "Did you notice," she whispered, "that your urges are always stronger when he's around?"

The Soldier frowned, his fingers on her chin tightening. "No, they're always strong."

"Did you notice," she said, "that he feeds you ideas and inserts himself in your play time?"

He looked at her then, a strange expression on his face, and said nothing.

"Did you notice," she said, "that you never quite get what you want, that you include him whether you meant to or not?"

At that, the Soldier's habitual expression of condescending amusement disappeared. The expression left on his face was naked—power, a rage fermented to a killing high, a hunger that was helpless to anything but destroy. _A guess_ , she thought, _and a good one_.

They regarded each other. She saw what he could not do, the missing part of him. Not a matter of training, or even un-training, but something that was never there, a baffled and missing part of him. The Cook had seen a lack of mercy the first time he abducted her. But the fault lines ran deeper. What he could not control was poison to him, and what he could not know had made it poison. If he lacked love, or mercy, kindness or even how to identify it, he knew that he lacked it and could not obtain it. He could not control it.

 _The actions of a lover without understanding_ , she thought. _A clever play_.

He saw that she could see him, past the amused cruelty that he found comfortable and into another part of him, a part he had thought carefully hidden, the insecurity of knowing that there were things the world knew but he did not. The long carried burden of rage, that there was something he could not understand no matter what he did—the woman standing in front of him was uncanny, the expression on her face raising the memory of a time when he fumbled to find control of his world knowing that an inarticulate piece of it was missing. War had rescued him from it, giving him the background he'd always needed to blend in.

"Nothing's perfect," the Soldier snarled. "And you're not taking control of this. On your knees."

He pushed down at her shoulders, forcing her to her knees. "Since you need something in your mouth," he said, anger heating his tone, "get busy."

He was softer. The Cook could tell that he was thinking about what she'd said, and wrapped her lips around him with a secretive smile.


	15. Diamond and Sandpaper

The work of blowing him, she found, got easier. The first moment of sliding her lips around him was difficult, doing for him what she would ordinarily do for the pleasure of watching a lover react. It was hard not to spit his cock from her mouth, not to peel her lips from her teeth and punish him for trying to take something more from her than he'd already taken. And then, it was simply a matter of muscle memory, her mind working on the implications of what she had seen, small shifts on her knees to ease the pressure of kneeling. Because she knew it would make him uncomfortable, she did a good job, making an art of eliciting helpless noises from him.

The Soldier pushed her away when his breathing started to change, sending her sprawling and bruising her back on the faucet. The Cook pushed herself away from it, lips swollen from friction and wet. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, putting both hands behind her and leaning back on them. The muscles picked themselves out of the columns of his thighs and feet, and she watched them move restlessly.

"What do you mean using?" He stayed standing above her, fingers in claws on his thighs.

"Nothing," she said, watching his hands. "He just seems like he's getting something out of this, and he seems to always be around when you or the Medic want to do something. He's always suggesting things to you both."

The Soldier's eyes narrowed in thought, and he reached down and picked her up, putting her on her feet. His hands stayed on her upper arms, squeezing the flesh, as if reminding her to stay. She stepped forward slightly, pressing her chilled skin to his. Her head barely reached his nipples, and she rested her chin on him, tilting her head up to look at his face. Her skin crawled, despite his warmth, but she kept herself close to him, reminding his body of hers as he tried to tease the truth from her words and the world around them. _I have learned_ , she thought. _Keep the pressure on him, keep him remembering with his body what I could do for him_.

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, making her voice deferential. "He just seems oddly satisfied and he keeps staring at you when you're not looking."

The Cook shifted slightly, rubbing herself across him, brushing his erection with her belly. His fingers tightened involuntarily and his eyes focused on her, on her deliberate attempt to tease him. "What are you up to Rosie?" The Soldier's eyes narrowed. "What's going through that naughty head of yours?"

"Hunger," she said, hissing it slightly to watch his face.

The Soldier blinked in surprise. "I'm never going to get used to how easily you bitches flip."

"Touch me," she whispered. "Please."

"Beg me," he said, eyes starting to darken as his pupils expanded.

She couldn't stop herself from pausing, a momentary hesitation that was the only visible sign of the rage and desire to hurt him that sat on her shoulder, urging her to cut deep. The Soldier smiled briefly.

"Not as smooth as you thought, are you? But you will beg anyway, out there with our witness. Maybe you'll impress him, but you'd better work hard. He's probably seen a lot of impassioned begging."

The Soldier bent down slightly. "They say a carrot and stick approach works best for this. Tell me, Rosie girl, which of us do you suppose is the carrot and which the stick?"

She thought the answer but did not speak it: there were no carrots in that room.

He pulled the curtain aside and shoved her shoulder gently. She stepped out of the tub, shivering as the cooler air of the room evaporated the remnants of the shower. The Soldier dried himself off, and pushed her again, walking her out of the door. The Spy paused in his pacing and turned to them, his face smoothing and growing languid.

"Well," he asked the Soldier.

The Soldier laughed. "Down, girl."

The Cook went down on her knees slowly, then sat back on her legs.

"She has something she'd like to say to the both of us." The Soldier sat down on the edge of his bed, comfortably leaning his elbows on his knees. A few spare droplets of water slowly travelled down his shins, and she found herself watching them to distract herself from what she was about to have to do.

The Spy paced forward until he stood close enough to make it difficult for her to make eye contact, looking up at him like a supplicant. "If I have to wait," he said, "you will regret it."

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Please," she said. "Please hurt me."

The Spy snorted and prodded her with a foot. "I don't believe that in the slightest, and I don't care if you want me to hurt you. I'd rather hear something else. I want to know what you're up to."

On the bed, the Soldier scooted back, crossing his ankles, and leaned against the wall. "In the shower, she was trying to tell me you were using me."

The Cook winced, looking down to hide the surge of fear which blanked her features.

The Spy took a breath and let it out slowly. The Soldier froze, watching the Spy's face and the brief frustration on it that shouted something awry. The Soldier's eyes narrowed again, and he hid his suspicions in a relaxed expression of disbelief.

The Spy looked over at the Soldier. "You have manacles and handcuffs in there?" He nodded at the foot locker.

"Yeah, sure," the Soldier said. "Keys are in the top desk drawer."

"Got anything rough or spiky in there? Extra coarse sandpaper, maybe, from one of your projects?"

The Soldier sat up, eyes lighting up. "You know I love the way your mind works. Bottom drawer in the desk."

The Spy pulled sheets of sandpaper out of the drawer and lined the bottom of the desk chair with it, then crossed the room and retrieved two sets of handcuffs and two sets of manacles. "Sit," he said, pointing to the chair.

The Cook looked at the chair and then him, a brief look of horror crossing her face. There was a punishment favored in Japan—innocuous seeming until it is experienced, the idea of making someone kneel on a handful of scattered rice grains. Very few of the people she'd talked to had done it, but those that had said it hurt far worse than any beating they'd endured. Gravity bore one down onto the small, hard grains, the pain becoming a burrowing, unending torment.

The Soldier stood up, towel still tucked low on his hips. "Rosie, you can sit yourself or we can put you there, your choice."

She stood up slowly and walked to the chair, staring at it. The Spy kicked the back of her knees and pushed, making her fall into the chair as her knees collapsed. The Cook turned and sat, gasping at the bite of the paper. The Spy manacled her wrists to the chair arms, then bent for her ankles. She kicked, catching his shoulder and knocking him over.

The Soldier burst out laughing, and the Spy looked over at him with brief hatred.

"She's kicked you before," he said, when he stopped laughing. "You should have paid better attention."

The Spy grabbed one of her ankles, digging his fingers into the skin hard enough to leave bruises, and manacled her ankle to the chair. After he'd repeated the process with the other ankle, he stood up, dusting his knees off.

Turning to the Soldier, he said, "Put some pants on. I want a word with you outside."

The Soldier pulled a pair of fatigues up his hips and walked out of the room barefoot. The Spy shut the door, leaving the Cook in the quiet. The grains of sand on the paper bit, then stung, then sent burning, awful tendrils up the skin of her thighs and ass, demanding the entirety of her attention and getting it. The burning grew more intense, the grains feeling like tiny torches applied to her nerves—itching, burning spots of pain which had no relief. Moving merely shifted the millions of points of pain boring into her skin and took a fine layer of skin from the bottom of her thigh.

After some indeterminable time, the Spy came back in alone. "Me first," he said. "That man has no sense of subtlety." He sat down on the edge of the bed, settling comfortably into the mattress. She watched the cloth and its comfort hungrily, the nerves in her body shrieking at her to get up.

He waited, watching her be as still as possible, watching her try to prevent herself from squirming, from the grating herself against the paper. When she shifted her weight and the pain crossed her face, he merely smiled and kept waiting. She began to sweat, and he kept waiting. Finally, she could not stop herself.

"What do you want," she panted.

The Spy's eyebrows went up quickly, but he didn't reply. Pulling a cigarette case from his pocket, he tapped a hand-rolled cigarette on his opposite forearm. He lit it, and pulled a smoky mouthful before letting it trickle out of his mouth, looking at her through the smoke. Her breath was shallow with pain, and in her imagination, he appeared to be a dragon as the smoke trickled by his mouth and rose to the ceiling.

"What do you want from me?" She could not keep the edge from her voice, the pain stealing into her voice from her thoughts about burning, about drilling, about the skin of her thighs coming off.

He kept waiting, and after awhile, she let her head loll back in the chair, concentrating on breathing, on trying to let the pain roll over her and through her. The silence continued, broken by the occasional whisper of cloth as he shifted his weight. After awhile, she couldn't even do that, and merely endured, her head flipping down as she sagged forward in the chair, exhausted from bearing the pain.

"You know what I want."

Her voice trickled out from between her lips like the saliva which dribbled down her thighs, stinging the skin in contact with the sandpaper. "You want to know what I'm up to."

His silence was encouraging.

"Everything. Nothing. I feel sorry for your team members."

The silence kept going.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll move one of the sheets of sandpaper when I like your answer."

Her head stayed down and she struggled to focus, to hold on to her thoughts.

"Why did you stay here when Miss Pauling came?"

"I felt bad for your team members. They seem so sad and broken."

The BLU Spy looked at her incredulously, but removed a sheet from the edge of the chair. A thin layer of the skin of her thigh came with the paper as he dragged it away from her, leaving a long scrape which shrieked as it came into contact with the warm chair.

"What did you tell the Doctor?"

"That you were using him."

"And how did he react?"

"He covered my mouth."

The BLU Spy pulled another sheet out from under her thigh, leaving most of a thigh in contact with the chair.

"What did you tell the Soldier?"

"The same thing."

The BLU Spy frowned, then pulled a sheet out from under her other thigh.

"What are you trying to do?"

Some part of her mind curled around itself, trying to keep a secret shell to contain the plan, trying to figure out what to say, what he would believe. "Wanted to help them somehow."

He pulled another sheet out from under her thigh, leaving both thighs on the chair.

"And how were you going to help them?"

"Wanted to distract you all," she said haltingly. "So you wouldn't hurt them."

The BLU Spy merely looked at her with a mixture of contempt and disbelief.

"Why," he finally said, "would you care?"

The silence stretched out between them.

"I don't know," she finally said. "I just don't want them to be hurt."

The Spy pulled the penultimate sheet out from under her ass slowly.

"So you would take their hurt on yourself? How like a masochist. But you, you're too clever for that to be your only reason. If you want that last sheet out from under you, you'll give me the real reason."

Her skin was on fire, the nerves still screaming at her—burning from the scrape and their extended contact with the sandpaper, and the section of her ass still on the paper screaming anew for being the only part of her still in contact with the sand on the paper.

"That's all I've got," she said, an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. "I don't have anything else."

He merely sat back, getting comfortable again. Her thoughts began to empty, dribbling out of her head. The roaring of blood and breath in her ears started to fade, replaced by nothing. Her open mouth let a steady stream of drops patter on the skin of her thighs. The stream slowed, than stopped as her mouth dried. Time slowed, surging with her pulse and then with the white noise of her ears shrieking in the silence. She sagged forward until she could rest her breasts and forehead on her thighs, the air in her lungs running out into a slow stream until it felt odd to breathe, odd to draw breath in.

She'd been operated on, now tortured, and she'd been forced to blow one of her captors. She was so tired, so very, very tired that her body felt as if it were an object at the end of a long tunnel.

A distant voice asked a soft question. She caught the last few words helplessly, the way one might catch a ball thrown at one's torso by surprise.

A distant voice answered the question, and she was surprised to find that it was hers. "I told them to hide from you, to stay away. You'll die if you try to get them. They're behind guns."

The distant voice laughed. Another question, so soft it was barely on the edge of her hearing. She was bemused to find some part of her mind chasing it. Another part of her mind, hard like a little diamond, held something that she did not want to share. She was having trouble remembering why—exhaustion laid silken, leaden fingers on her and stroked her spine, pulling her down.

Her distant voice answered again. "It's so dysfunctional here, so sad and awful. The poor Engineer…" the voice trailed off.

The fingers on her spine were warm, soothing, and she realized dully that someone was behind her, stroking her like a pet, the contrast with the shrieking pain of her abused skin keeping her conscious. There was a low moaning noise, and she realized it was her, that her voice was answering again.

"Not altruism. I know what it's like to be abused. Can't not try to fix."

The rasp of the paper being pulled out from underneath her shocked her back to semi-consciousness. Hands pulled her upright and her head flopped back to look at the underside of the BLU Spy's chin, fuzzy with her nearsightedness and the strange, lethargic state she was in. That small diamond-like part of her mind noted the satisfaction in his body, written on his face. The rest, thoughts dribbling through it, simply existed.

"Good girl," he said, tilting his head down to look at her. His hands stroked her face, and she found herself fawning into it, into something pleasant, something that was not the burning in her thighs and ass. The only part of her body moving was her head, leaning into his hands. He called over his shoulder, and someone walked in front of her, unlocking the handcuffs and manacles. Her arms fell limply, and the only thing keeping her up was the hands stroking her face, which reached forward quickly to catch her.

A new voice spoke. "That was effective." The Soldier, as she realized who it was, leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her limp torso and lifting.

"Patience," the BLU Spy said. "You'd be amazed how much of it they'll do to themselves in anticipation of what you might do. She feared what might happen, fought herself and the pain, and ran out of energy to defend herself. No doubt the Medic eviscerating her helped wear her down a bit. I had more planned, but this was effective enough."

She could feel the thoughts slowly trickling back in, feel herself waking.

"If you want her to stay in that state, you'll need to do something soon," the Spy said. "She's already trying to fight her way out of it."

The Soldier chuckled, a rumbling noise that vibrated her. "Not going to stick around?"

"I need to talk to the Medic before he gets any wild ideas."

She could feel the Soldier shrug, her body moving in a wave with his shoulder. She let herself relax into the movement he was doing for them both, conserving her energy. Her head flopped back and she looked at his face, at the smug expression on it. The Spy let himself out and shut the door behind him.

"It's just the two of us again, Rosie." The Soldier turned, dragging her like a dance partner, and put her down on the bed. "Tell me—you still feeling brave?"


	16. The Desire to Please is Insidious

The Soldier stood next to the bed, watching personality flow back into her face from the blank spaces she had inhabited. The process was not complete. Some part of her kept rallying back, trying over and over to escape or perhaps even to strike back. In some ways, he respected that resiliency. It was a pity she was not male. Most people broke so much more easily, especially considering the sheer volume of things she had endured over that last two days. With an unaccustomed regret, he realized that despite her inherent weaknesses and the upcoming shattering he intended to do, the rarity of that kind of mind was, itself, a reason to temper some of his darker impulses. The process that had put the first polish on him in the military had been brutal but necessary, and the advanced course in cruelty that was war had finished that polish, buffing even the hint of softness from him. He had watched other men break, despising them for their weakness and surprised at how wide-spread it was in others.

The same weakness ran wild in the world at large, and he despised it.

When the Cook blinked and scanned the room, looking to see if the Spy had left, he knew she was back enough to be able to speak, enough to make the choice conscious again. The Soldier gestured. "Sit up and take my pants off."

She closed her eyes briefly, in a strangely lucid state of exhaustion, then sat up against the stiffness in her muscles. She reached for the buttons and he let her, watching her fingers fumble numbly with them. After a moment, she got his pants undone and they fell from his bare hips. He stepped out of them.

"We're going to have a chat in a bit," the Soldier said, "about what the Spy is up to. You're a good girl for warning me, but I'm not stupid enough to suppose it's out of any real sense of servility or loyalty."

He crawled past her, laying with his back to the wall. "Poor thing," he said, mockingly. "So tired. So mistreated. Come get a cuddle." He sat up and drew her down into the heat of his body, laying stiff with anticipation of something new and from the stinging burn of the raw skin on the back of her thighs and ass.

"Shhhh." He stroked the side of her face, a slow pressure that reminded her of her exhaustion and then of that moment in the shower, of the slow creeping desire to please, if only it would let her rest. "Poor baby." _I wonder_ , he thought, _if she knows that she'll go back to the cage as soon as I break her down_.

She stared at the far wall, trying to stay awake over the abyss of exhaustion as her eyes grew heavy and sandy.

"Poor baby," he repeated. "Poor little girl."

She could hear an edge in his voice-anticipation, perhaps, but he kept his movement gentle, the radiant warmth of his body behind her loosening the tight muscles of her back. As she teetered on the edge of sleep, he leaned down slightly to whisper in her ear.

"I wonder," he whispered, squeezing her with an arm, "if you will associate someone holding you like this with me."

She fell off into unconsciousness.

There was a dinner table and a huge platter. She laid on it, flat on her back and surrounded by garnish, the logic of dreams giving her an apple in her mouth and the inability to move. The mercenaries sat around the table, and as she watched, the Soldier stood and sharpened the carving knife. She rolled her eyes to look around the table, watching their uniforms shift red and blue, faces changing slightly. The Soldier himself stayed blue, standing at the head of the table.

He prayed then, words incomprehensible and thick, knife stilling, and as she watched, something red-black and sticky dribbled from his lips. When he looked up, his chin was gory. He reached out with the knife and sawed her head off, and she watched helplessly as he lifted it, showing her the table and the shifting, inhuman faces around her.

"Do you see," he said in her ear. "There is no escape."

And then he popped her, tiny as a doll head, in his mouth and swallowed.

The Cook's eyes opened in the darkness. The Soldier slept behind her, arm thrown around her waist and breath slow and hot on her scalp. In that half-waking state, the darkness formed itself into a sticky tide that crept slowly up the side of the bed.

Panting, she bit her lower lip, forcing the room to become merely the four walls she'd seen before falling asleep. Moving very, very slowly, she started to edge away from the Soldier, moving by increments and stopping, waiting for a reaction and his breathing to change, anything that would tell her he was waking.

Just before his hand would have dropped to the mattress, he curled it, pulling her back. His voice, slurred with sleep, rumbled from behind her. "No, not yet you don't."

The Soldier stretched, pointing his toes and shaking with the force of the stretch. With a yawn, he reached past her to turn the lamp on and turned her around. "You slept a long time, Honey. Must have been worn out."

His lips were flushed and full with sleep, and his eyelids still heavy. He smiled lazily as she watched him, seeing the dregs of the dream and the fear it inspired. "Like what you see," the Soldier asked with the same laziness, now studied and practiced, the dazzling charm back on his face.

She tried to stifle the sudden urge to please him, to appease him and hope that things would not be worse, but not before the abortive start of a nod. His smile deepened and he took a breath in, exhaling heat across her face. His arm tightened, pulling her closer. "I've always liked this stage. It gets hard not to want to please, to want to make me happy and hope I make you happy."

A brief flash of panic crossed her face.

"And then you have moments when you realize what's happening, just like that, and it terrifies you."

That small, hard corner of her brain flashed defiance, buried under the fear and the urge to please. She curled around that portion of herself, keeping her face blank with an effort—it got stronger, the desire to be touched kindly, the overwhelming need to simply have peace.

"I don't suppose I've quite broken you yet, Rosie, but it's starting. You'll start thinking of me as someone to please. You'll want me, want me to pay attention to you and to touch you. You'll find yourself thinking about me when I'm not around, hoping I've had a good day, or that I'll touch you in a way you like."

He rolled, pulling her on top of him. "Fuck me, and I'll tell you how this goes, Honey."

The diamond-hard part of her brain withdrew, pulling some part of her away from the hand that obediently reached under her and the body which slowly sank down on him with a disturbing familiarity.

"This is how it goes, Rosie-girl," he said, the muscles in his stomach and hips moving, his voice becoming breathy. "Right now, some part of you is still denying reality, this reality where you're feeling pleasure whether you like it or not. But it's being drowned out by your dumb body. Your dumb body wants pleasure. It wants to feel good and it's louder than your denial."

His fingers tightened on her hips and she realized that she'd set up a steady rhythm atop him, that strain was starting to show in his voice. It was on his face as well, the flush and line of sweat starting on his forehead.

"Every time you come, Rosie, you'll be one moment closer to that part of you shutting up for good. It can only be louder than your body if I stop, and I won't stop while this amuses me."

She realized with horror that her body was nearing a climax, that her breath was short and she was wet. Her eyes opened wide and her rhythm stuttered. He grabbed one of her hands and put it between her legs, forcing her fingers to her clit.

"Touch yourself. Let your dumb body have what it wants."

The Cook came with a sound like a sob, and the Soldier laughed, trailing off into his own orgasm. She stayed atop him, disjointed like a broken doll and slumping until he pushed her off, pulling her back into the curve of his body and going back to a gentle stroking, curving a warm hand around her breast and rolling her nipple between his fingers, massaging and pulling.

He tucked his chin atop her head, reminding her viscerally of the RED Soldier for a nauseating moment, before speaking. "So," he said, "what is the Spy up to?"

And she answered, easily, the distant part of herself shocked at how simple it was to answer. "He's manipulating the both of you. He likes to control what he sees as the most dangerous, predatory people on either team."

"A predator of predators?" His fingers stroked her arm, raising goose bumps on the sensitive skin.

"That's how he sees himself." Her body wanted—wanted more pleasure, more of this pleasant interlude, and the diamond-like core in her mind, lulled to pleasure itself by the symmetry of using the truth to damage them all, shrieked in alarm. Desire was a warm blanket that wore the edges from her anger. His hand kept moving, idly finding places that kept her there, suffocating and dying. She could feel a goblet of his come trickle out of her and shuddered.

"You know what makes this work, Rosie girl? I'm giving you a carrot and you know there's a stick. At any second, we could go back to the stick."

At that moment, she wanted more than anything for the pain to start, for something else to think about, anything but what he was doing with his hands and how hard it was to do anything but want more.

"You were a very good girl, though." His lips descended on the sensitive skin of her throat, beneath her ear, and he nibbled gently, watching her body relax into his mouth, watching it writhe gently against him before gathering up a heavy mouthful and setting his teeth into it, to watch the writhe become a squirm, her body trying to escape a wound so close to a vital area. When he opened his mouth, her nipples had hardened around the rings and a purplish imprint of his teeth laid in a clear ring beneath her ear.

"There's your dumb body talking again. Tell me what it's saying Rosie."

Her mind had emptied, except that single, hard pocket of determination, and she gasped, still squirming in echoes of her pain, oversensitive and at war with herself.

"Atta girl," he said, voice buttery and gloating. "And now, I'm hungry. Go make food."

She froze, looking back at him.

"You can borrow a shirt, and you should probably run so no one catches you between the kitchen and my room." He shoved her gently off the bed, into the cold air. She opened the top drawer of his chest of drawers and pulled a sweater out. Yanking it over her head, she reached for a pair of sweat pants.

"Don't bother," he said, the laugh skipping in his voice. "Just run for warmth."

She opened the door, looking both ways, and dashed out into the hall.

The Pyro was raiding the kitchen when she came in. His eyes roamed from the teeth marks in her neck to her bare legs and ass, the dazed expression on her face and the flush of her cheeks. The expression on his face slowly darkened, lingering on the edge of the sweater. "I'd ask how it's going," he said wryly, "but I think I have an answer. You look like a doe in heat: wide-eyed, terrified, and stinking of fuck."

She shook herself, trying to free herself of the seductive desire to please, to make the pain stop, the echoes of pleasure still running drugged fingers down her spine. "Just tell me they're okay."

"Sure, they're fine. I'm out, foraging for the group." He slowly lowered a block of cheese into a bag, then turned back to her. "I don't want to touch you until you've had a shower, but so we're clear, I'd be happy to entertain you."

"I …" She wanted to start screaming, and once she started, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop. "One thing at a time," she finally said.

"Like the rest of us, it's been awhile." His eyes kept wandering down, watching the edge of the sweater. "He might as well piss on you."

She couldn't stop herself from flushing.

The Pyro's eyebrows shot up and his mouth made a small oh of surprise, surprisingly red in the haze of black stubble on his chin. "Is everyone into water sports but me?"

"No," she said, shortly, and walked to the fridge. After a moment of staring blankly at the contents of the refrigerator, she turned to him, closing the distance between them. Coming up on her toes, she pulled him forward until she could reach his ear. He reached out automatically, wrapping his hands around her waist, and she couldn't speak for a moment, instead standing on her toes and swaying. He shivered, and it stirred her to speech.

"Tell them I planted the seeds," she whispered. "I have to get this done fast. They're…." She couldn't finish the sentence, trembling.

The Pyro looked at her with hooded eyes, his expression growing cooler. "They're good at making you want to obey," he said, fingers digging into her sides. "But if you do, you'll fuck us."

"I know," she said, pulling back. For a moment, he refused to let her and she was reminded that he'd asked if he could bleed her. She could see it on his face, the desire to simply take what he wanted. She went limp for a moment before tensing and tearing herself out of his grip. The Pyro watched her, head cocked.

"I know," she repeated, curling her arms around herself. "I'm doing the best I can, but it's starting to get very hard not to want to please."

He sighed, letting the tension flow out of his expression. "I think I'll keep that one to myself. The Engineer and Scout are nervous enough."

She turned, opening the refrigerator, and reached into it, pulling the ingredients for omelets out. The Pyro watched her cook, his eyebrows lowered as he contemplated her. He leaned backward on his elbows against the counter, and watched her move. After a few minutes, he spoke.

"I don't suppose there's any chance I could get an omelet?"

The Cook looked over her shoulder at him. "Huh? Oh, sure."

His expression darkened. "And if I told you to hit your knees and open your mouth?"

She hissed, her face alight with violence, brandishing the knife she was using to dice bacon. The Pyro sighed with relief.

"Thank fuck. You're not too far along, then."

The Cook blinked, knife still up between them.

"I had to check," he said, defensively. "Please don't stab me."

She looked at the knife, seemingly astounded that it was there, then looked at him. "This is a bad time to play games with me."

"I know," he said. "But I have to check. I've seen those bastards at work before, and I'm stir-crazy from reassuring the Engineer that they're not going to get in and rape him. The Scout is literally doing laps of the Engineer's lab. The Heavy would take him out to run, but the Scout can't slow down enough to make that fair, even if he just runs circles of the Heavy."

"I bet," she said and turned back to the bacon, knife thunking against the board.

He smiled weakly at her. "The faster the better. I may not be able to stop myself from strangling them both for the peace and quiet."

She tipped the cutting board over the pan, a ferocious sizzling heralding the bacon hitting the hot metal. "Did you still want an omelet?"

"I … yeah. I mean, if you want to give me one."

She smiled at him, a professional smile that he interpreted as genuine, before replying. "Absolutely. Coming right up."

The Cook made four omelets, which she sent with him, before starting on the omelet for the Soldier. The Pyro left, and she found herself wondering if she'd be able to run back to the Soldier's room without losing the plate and its contents. She hadn't waited tables, and while the kitchen had required a certain amount of speed, it had definitely not required running flat out from contact with a plate in one hand. Her mind wandered as she flipped the omelet, and she found herself wondering if he would like the omelet, if he would praise her cooking, the thing for which she was most proud.

The omelet tore as her hand jerked, and she stared at it, paling. _The desire to please is insidious_ , she thought and plated it, torn as it was, as a small act of defiance. Peeking right and left, she exited the kitchen and ran back toward the Soldier's room.


	17. Looking-glass Warfare

The Cook reached the Soldier's door, tilting the plate slightly to let her sprint and grateful that the cheese was sticky as it cooled in the frigid base air. Rounding the partially open door, she collided with the back of the Spy, nearly dropping the plate and spattering her breasts with grease. The Spy turned and looked at her balancing the plate. He swore, craning his neck to try and see the back of his navy blue jacket.

"If you've made it greasy," he growled, "you'll be washing it." She blinked up at him, alarmed, and he reached for her with a grimace. The Cook flinched away quickly, still cradling the plate. Over the Spy's shoulder, she saw the Soldier pulling a thermal shirt over his head.

He peered around the Spy, seeing her and the plate. "Just put the plate on my desk, Honey, and sit on the floor by the chair."

The Cook circled around the Spy, put the plate on the desk and sat on the frigid concrete with a wince, watching them both warily.

The Soldier turned to the Spy. "I don't care what the Medic is saying, and I don't care if he's upset. He's your problem, not mine." He walked to the desk and sat down at the chair, running a hand over the Cook's head, proprietarily, before reaching for the fork.

The Spy swore. "You don't understand. That man is currently a ticking time bomb, and if he goes off it will be on you, because he thinks you're a threat to him."

After a few bites, the Soldier replied. "If I even think he'll get violent, I will kill him and let Blutarch be irritable. He had to choose a goddamn serial killer for a team Medic, and left the rest of us to deal with it. And, frankly, I don't intend to deal with it. You're good at it. You deal it."

The Spy's face flushed and he took a step forward. "That man is unstable, and he's holed himself up in the surgery. He came within an inch of sticking that damn saw in me when I went to check on him, and while he won't be happy to see you, he damn well would be less paranoid if he didn't think you were about to come get him."

The Spy looked down at the Cook, dark eyes full of malice. "I know you're behind this." To the Soldier, he said, "I know she's talked to both of you, and whatever she's said, it isn't true."

The Soldier polished off the last few bites of the omelet and stretched, then turned the chair. "Her mouth was full most of the evening." He petted the top of her head idly, staring at the Spy. "She made a lot of noise, but didn't say anything." The Soldier looked down, his hand pausing. "I take that back, I think she might have said 'god' a few times."

The Cook stared at the floor and shuddered in a mix of disgust and desire. The Soldier's hand went back to stroking, much the way he would a dog, ruffling the short red tufts on her head idly. He lied fluidly and easily, both with his mouth and with his whole body, radiating ease and mild amusement. She reminded herself to be careful with him, to be a better liar or to keep trying to find his blind spots—his pride, his need to control, the strangely observant, yet oblivious way he could locate greed and corruption, but not understand compassion or empathy.

She wondered if this, too, would rub off on her. The lies she had already told, the partial truths, got easier each time. _But am I good enough_ , she thought. _Can I lie well enough to fool him?_

The Spy stared at the Soldier, rage curling his mouth into a snarl. "You arrogant asshole. It will and does affect you if that man loses his shit. He may decide preemptively coming after you is the smartest move, and he probably won't do it while you're awake." The Spy pointed to the Cook. "And don't think that one will help you."

"What, her?" The Soldier laughed contemptuously, his fingers tightening on her scalp. "She wouldn't even make a good meat shield. But no, I'm not worried. The Medic is neurotic, but he's a coward. He wouldn't dare try anything he thinks will hurt him."

The Spy grabbed his black hair with both hands, briefly shielding his face. Mangled French trickled from his mouth as he tugged his hair. When he could speak again, it was with obvious effort. "I do not think you understand, but you will if he cannot be contained."

He looked down at the Cook, face livid with violence. "When he tires of you, or maybe just because he needs to terrify you, he'll ask me to help. If you thought our little gambit with the sandpaper was bad, I've got worse. And I owe you for the trouble you're causing me. You'd better keep him really happy and hope he won't hand you over."

She could sense the Soldier's satisfaction, and the flicker of expression on the Spy's face made it clear that he conceded as a sop to the Soldier—the small part of her brain that noticed such things celebrated their slow disintegration.

The rest of her mind was terror, all terror.

The Spy turned on his heel and stalked out, slamming the door. The Soldier sat for a moment, thinking, before sighing deeply. "That," he said, "is going to become a problem." He looked down at the Cook. "Well," he said, "we'll have to make the best of it. I suppose I should thank you. I should have realized that he was managing me before this, but it's easy to get caught up in my urges."

He grabbed the back of her neck gently. "This… this I missed. I missed the slow, sweet process. I can't take them back here, and just fucking them is boring. But you, you're stuck here with us. You're stuck here, and the fun thing, Honey, is that you'll go back to RED and they'll convince you that you're a princess again. And I'll get to re-break you a bit every time. Hell, I'll wait until you start to get proud again before touching you." The fingers stroked, and she fought herself not to lean into it.

"But we never did do that sex show, did we? Speaking of being a princess, I think we need a little object lesson on film, so you can't forget it. Memory is so convenient." The Soldier stood. "You never told me who your choice was." He looked down at her. "So, who are you going to pick?"

The Cook didn't have an answer for him. She'd hoped he would forget, be distracted, anything but pick up a camera and record, and force her to see and relive what he and they would make her do. She looked up, mute in distress.

He let the silence build, a small smile hovering about his lips. _Chose, Honey, and feel responsible for choosing_ , he thought. _Chose and know you made yourself a part of it_.

After a moment, the Cook cleared her throat. She had to choose the Spy. She had to keep driving that wedge between them, to keep the Spy trying to mediate for an increasingly anxious and violent Medic, and to increase the Soldier's sense of being manipulated. The only power she had over him was that he needed to control everything, and that the Spy had a similar need—they'd managed, as far as she could tell, not to compete directly. _But with a push_ , she thought, _they might_. _And neither man can let the other one win_.

"The Spy," she said, voice failing to a whisper as she spoke.

The smile fell from the Soldier's face, and she could see the tension rising in his body, his shoulders shifting and the muscles in his arms making hills under his skin. "The Spy," he said, pitch slowly descending into something like a growl. "Why the Spy?"

Anger or the beginning of rage heated his tone, cutting the words as he spoke. She kept the relief off her face with a dizzying amount of effort.

"Do you assume," he snapped, "that I'll stop him if he decides to make snuff instead of porn?" The Soldier held his hands loosely, but she could see the urge to curl them as they twitched.

She let that sneaking sense of fear at not pleasing him creep into her voice, whining. "I thought you wanted me to do this, that you wanted me to pick someone."

The Soldier leaned down, putting his face in hers, hands gripping his knees. "Are you stupid or simply acting stupid? What are you up to?"

"I'm trying to make you happy," she gasped, without any need to lie about her fear. "I know you're friends, and I know what you're both like. I don't want to make trouble."

"Did you miss," he said, his breath hot on her face, "the fight in the last few minutes?"

"No," she said, cringing, "but I thought you might want to watch. You seem to like each other."

He froze for a few seconds, breath tickling her face. She could see the suspicion chasing jealousy across his face, and kept her face in that same cringe, searching his in obvious distress at his displeasure. The part of her that stayed apart laughed acidly at the pose—one hand lifted to ward a blow, her whole body curled up and tilted back, eyes wet with fear and ticking over and over across his face. _The really funny thing_ , she thought, _is that I am this afraid_.

"Please," she breathed, "I don't know what to do. I know you fought, but you've worked together before. I don't know if you'd rather watch or do."

The Soldier's head cocked and his focus sharpened, as if looking through her for a second. If she believed in god, she would have prayed that he believed her stupid or flawed, that he keep worrying about what the Spy had done to him so far. She would have prayed, if she could, that he would need revenge on the Spy, that his obvious enjoyment of having something other men didn't would jerk him about by the emotions. After a pause, he said, "I'll hold the camera, but don't think for a moment that I'll stop him if he decides to make snuff."

At that, she let the terror bubble up, twisting her face. The Soldier reached down, pulling her to her feet, and sat back down in the chair, letting her stand between his knees. She could feel their warmth on either side of her cold legs, and she wanted, not for the first time, pants—anything to warm her and cover her up, to keep him from being able to touch her easily and to keep a boundary between her body and his eyes.

"Maybe," he said, slowly, "I could be persuaded to be a little protective. But it's going to cost you."

She let her eyes slide to the floor and he grabbed her wrists. "The price is going to be expensive, Sweetie. It's going to be very expensive. My thing was always fucking with people's heads, and you gave me such a fun little tidbit about your past earlier."

She rolled her eyes up at him, letting them open wide.

"Honey, we're going to do a little role play, because I think it'll get you into the right frame of mind for later, and because it'll hurt you in the best ways." His fingers squeezed her wrists in a way that reminded her of the RED Sniper and Spy, edging from a warm sense of pressure to something painful. None of it surprised her any more, and she neither wobbled nor experienced anything but the pain.

"The fun thing," he said, "is that I actually own a cassock as well as one of those ridiculous black shirts, because it makes it much easier to get people to get in a car with you or take a bottle of water from you if they think you're harmless." His grin exposed the tips of his canines. "People can be so stupidly trusting, can't they?"

The Soldier watched fear in shades of pain wash across her face. "Tell me," he said softly. "Did you believe the contract you signed? Did you even read it closely?"

"No," she said, grief making her voice thick. "I was desperate for work and afraid that asking too many questions would make them not hire me."

He stared at her for a moment and that predatory smile widened, as if he were about to take a bite from her. She had trouble imagining that anyone found him harmless enough to take a drink or a ride from him—even his charm had the same hideous hunger in it.

"The companies are good at finding the desperate or making them," he said, running his eyes down her from the sticky pelt of her pubic hair, past the bruises on her knees and down to her pale, painfully cold feet. "Bet they didn't have to work hard for you, did they?"

The Cook realized she was grinding her teeth and stopped, but he saw the tell-tale surge in her jaw muscles and smirked. "So here's what I want you to do," he said, swinging her hands in his. "I want you to brave the halls and hunt down the Spy. You ask him if he'll do it. I'm going to get dressed and in the right frame of mind for church."

He released her wrists. "If you haven't eaten all day… well… tell you what. We'll feed you after I hear your confession. Now git." He turned her and slapped her ass, and she ran out of the room, to stand with her back to the door. Looking right and left, she realized that she had no idea where the Spy might be and he hadn't told her. With her arms wrapped around herself, she crept barefoot through the hall looking for his class symbol.

As she passed the cartoonish bomb symbol of the Demo's door, he opened it and stood, fingers with chewed nails curled around the door frame. She backed away immediately, flattening herself against the wall on the opposite side of the hall and scooting away with her back to the wall. He froze, black eyebrows shooting up to the paisley bandana he was using to push back his braids, then leaned against the door frame.

"You realize," he said, voice sardonic, "this is one of the things we're supposed to be able to borrow you for?"

When she didn't respond, he chuckled, looking at her expression. "That expression is priceless, but I actually want to ask a few questions. I could drag you in here, but I'd rather you walk." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "In."

She shook her head, raising her hands and continuing to scoot around him. "The Soldier told me I had to find the Spy, and I don't want to get in trouble with him."

The Demo looked down at her, his face mildly amused. "He's not here right now, but I am. So get in or I'll drag you in."

When she turned to take off running down the hall, he pounced and dragged her in the room, kicking the door shut. She scanned the room, noticing that he had a still as well, though his was neat and the woodwork that held it up had obviously been handmade. His desk held several neat piles of gaming books on it, notes bristling from the pages, and a laptop. Above the desk, a dragon flew across a poster, silhouetted against a bright blue sky.

He gestured, hand open. "Would you rather sit on the bed or at the desk?"

She dived for the desk chair and perched on it, watching him—the bed seemed too close to an invitation.

"Tell me something," he said, sitting on the bed with a groan from its springs. "You ever play any tabletop games?"

She shook her head, watching him with obvious discomfort, knees pressed tightly together. He eyed her body language with a mixture of annoyance at her assumption and pity.

"Suppose I'll get down to business. What the hell is going on with the Medic, Soldier, and Spy? And why the hell has half the base gone into hiding? I'm not the only one who wants to know, but I saw you first."

The Cook looked at him, trying to weigh what to trust him with and sighed. "The Medic is being erratic, and the Soldier is being himself. The Spy can't keep a leash on them both. Everyone they normally pick on has gone into hiding out of self-preservation."

He flipped his braids over his shoulder, brows furrowed in thought, before responding. "How erratic is erratic?"

"The Spy says he almost ended up with a gut full of saw when he went to check on the Medic." She wrapped her fingers around the edges of the seat and leaned forward. "If I had to guess, he's a few minutes from some kind of meltdown."

The Demo's eyes widened in alarm. "That man has access to any number of interesting chemicals and the air vents. I don't know what he knows how to mix for sure, but I can't imagine he'd find it difficult to do something drastic. I don't know if he has a gas mask. I know I do, but the rest of you might wake up strapped to a table."

"Gas mask? How did you end up with a gas mask?"

The Demo flushed slightly. "Hobbies."

"What kind of—"

He cut her off. "Don't worry about my hobbies. Can the Spy calm him down at all?"

"He thinks the Soldier is going to come after him now that respawn's down."

The Demo leaned back on the bed, eyes staring through her, the wall, and the world around. "It wouldn't be a bad idea," he said, slowly. "That bastard makes me nervous. But Blutarch would never go for it while he still thinks the Medic will do his job." He shifted on the bed, coming up on one elbow and lacing his fingers across his chest. "Of course, Blutarch wouldn't be able to see it until respawn is back up, and the statistics start pouring in. So the Medic would have to stay nervous, wouldn't he?"

Her mouth sagged open— _surprise or terror_ , he thought. _Knowing those three, probably terror_.

"You've thought of that, have you?" His gaze sharpened, focusing on her. "I might have known that they wouldn't pick an idiot for this job."

"I don't know what you mean," she said, voice flat. She didn't sound convincing to herself, let alone him.

"You sure you don't play any tabletop games? I know the Heavy and Medic from the other team play chess."

"No," she said. "No chess."

"How about poker?" He sat up and leaned forward on his knees. "It'd be real interesting to see you over a poker table." In the pause, she flushed and stared at the floor. His hands shot up in front of him, surprised and defensive. "Not the way the Soldier suggested!"

The flush climbed higher.

"Still a blusher, huh?"

She glared at him, the effect ruined by the red in her cheeks. His lips twisted, and she realized he was biting the inside of his cheek and trying not to laugh.

"Well now," he said, clearing his throat. "We'll just have to keep making the Medic nervous, won't we? Fortunately, I like a good joke as much as the next fella. So does our Sniper."

"Don't ruin it," she said softly. "Don't make it too obvious, or it'll backfire."

The Demo grinned at her. "Our Sniper's as sneaky as that Spy, without the gear. Won't take much to keep the Doc boiling, and we have more reason to hate him than you do. We'll just rearrange things at night, when he sleeps and a few other little tricks I know."

"Just don't make him boil over," she said, softly. "Not until he's back out on the battlefield. And he needs to blame the Spy and Soldier."

"Now what," the Demo said, mimicking her quiet tone, "do you have in mind? What's running through that head of yours?"

She didn't say anything, just stared at him.

After a moment, his mouth rounded in surprise. "Ah!" He unlaced his hands and pointed a finger at her. "Oooo, that's clever and evil. Remind me to be careful if I ever play poker with you." He paused, head tilted while he considered. "Neutral evil? Definitely evil. But would you play—"

She put a finger up to her lips, cutting him off. "Don't," she whispered, eyes begging. "Don't say it."

"I won't," he said. "But it's a clever solution to a shitty problem. We've been afraid of them. It's time for them to be afraid of each other."

The Cook sighed in relief, looking at the delighted malice on his face. He winked at her, grinning broadly and mischievously. "I know you're busy, but I can't wait to see you again some time when you have time to visit. Maybe for poker?"

"Maybe," she said, deciding to trust him, "I'll be merciful and play for small change."

"Don't you dare. Poker's not fun until you sweat." He sat up. "In lieu of that game of poker, can I have a kiss?"

She looked at him, the skin under her eyes twitching. After a moment, he cleared his throat. "We could always play poker for that, as well. I've always liked a little game."

The Cook took a breath and smiled, a small forced expression. "I may need some time after all this is over."

"Don't blame you," he said, watching the strain on her face. "I'll just be helping you get it done quick, then."

She sighed quietly. "I can't wait for this to be over."

He watched the distant, averted look in her eye. "You'll survive," he said, finally, softly. "I promise you. We'd do a lot to get rid of those fucks."

When the Cook made eye contact, it was with obvious effort. "I'll live. I don't know about surviving."

The Demo half-smiled, something bitter and broken in the twist of his lips. "Memory dulls with time and distraction."

The Cook's eyes unfocused. "I don't know about that, either. This is costing me, and I won't know how bad it's going to be until it's over."

He stood and walked toward her, pulling her arms gently to make her stand. When she did, fine tremors in her hands and legs made her wobble, looking up at him and breathing shallowly. The Demo gave her that same half-smile and wrapped his arms around her, saying nothing. She went stiff, then as he stood, waiting, buried her face in his chest and stood, dry eyed and shaking. He leaned down slightly and kissed the top of her head, squeezing her in his arms—a remembered gesture from his mother, long since gone. After a moment, he let go.

"One moment at a time," he said softly. "We'll help you."

"Thanks." Her gaze grew more steady, and she smiled sadly at him. "Do you know where the Spy is?"

The Demo made a sour face. "If I had to guess, the basement. He's fixed himself a room down there. If you go down the stairs, make a left instead of a right. Right gets you to the Engineer's lab, and he's got all the guns set up around it. Went down there to ask him a question and there were beeps everywhere. Nearly got my ass shot off."

The Cook closed her eyes and took a breath, trying to prepare.

The Demo had a moment of rare pity, watching her try to brace herself, the skin of her legs twitching like that of a restive horse with the desire to run away, the muscles jumping. She locked her knees and elbows, stilling herself. Her skin was pebbled with cold, and he realized that it annoyed him—the base was still freezing cold. It was so stupid to make her run around, bare-assed. _And for what_ , he thought. _To prove what? That a professional killer twice her size could make her run around, bare-assed? That she could be made to be uncomfortable? What could he possibly be getting out of the experience?_

Behind her eyes, she kept reassuring herself over and over that it would end, that she could keep paying the price for it just a little longer. It would end and she would be able to go back to her room on the RED base and lock the door and put a chair under the door knob and take a shower and curl up and drink herself unconscious or at least enough to make the nightmares go away. She could just feel the nightmares coming on, every time she closed her eyes, could feel the nightmares about suffocation, about disappearing, about being swallowed up and dying bubbling up behind her eyes. She could barely feel the cold any more behind the racing of her mind, trying to stay ahead of her nightmares for just a little while longer, in control just a little bit longer, resisting the urge to please, the urge to do anything at all to make it stop before it devoured her, before there was nothing at all she could do to help herself.

She opened her eyes to find the Demo watching her, a soft, almost pitying expression on his face. "Stop that," she snapped. "I'll be fine."

"You will be," he said. "Eventually. Or you won't be, but you seem like a fighter to me. We'll help."

"Don't make any promises," she whispered, looking through him, "that you can't keep." The Cook smiled forlornly, then turned and let herself out of his room.


	18. Not Contrite Enough

The Cook carefully circled the stairs in the dark hallway, staying away from the unblinking eyes of the herd of sentries by the nearer door. They beeped in chorus, but didn't go off as long as she stayed away from them. The other side of the hall had several doors. She picked the door which wasn't emblazoned with warning signs for electrical components and knocked. After a moment, she heard a low growl and very slowly opened the door.

The Spy looked at her out of the corner of his eye from his position on a long, low leather couch. His closer hand held an efficient-looking, silenced .22, pointed levelly at her. His hat, cocked over his head, was held slightly to the side so that he could see the door. He sighed once, heavily, before relaxing the hand with the gun to his side on the couch—he never let go of the gun, but the exposed part of his forearm smoothed and his body sank back down into the couch. His eyes, however, never left her.

She looked around the room when he lowered the gun. The room was painted an aggressively dark shade of green, and he had hung several prints for whiskey and cigars on the walls. The prints, from the 1950s, had aged well in the poorly lit room. A low, dark wood cabinet against the wall held bottles, and a half-open door let her glimpse several racks of glasses. Aside from the couch, an overstuffed, leather chair sat near the couch, and a small table sat near both. An ashtray, overfilled, sat on the table. A single bookshelf held a variety of volumes in French and English, including a small collection of 1950s and 60s era pulp science fiction novels. The Spy cleared his throat.

"Are you quite finished looking around?"

She clasped her hands in front of herself. "I've been sent to ask you for help."

"Help," he said, musing. "Like all the help you've been giving me, lately." He scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his free hand and sat up suddenly. "Should I help you like you've been helping me?"

"I don't know what you think I've done," she said, "but—"

He cut her off. "How about you don't pretend to be innocent and I don't strangle you for the satisfaction it would give me, then pick you up at respawn and bring you back here until I get tired of it."

Her mouth closed with a click.

"Better," he said. "Now, if you've been sent for help, that _fils de pute_ sent you. If he sent you, he owes me." The shadows under his eyes deepened as he took the hat off, his unruly, unwashed hair falling in heavy hanks. He scrubbed it back, holding his hand to his head, and looked at her, an unhealthy glitter in his eyes. After scratching his stubbled cheeks, he dangled both hands between his legs, the gun held loosely in his fingers.

"So what does the _batard_ want from me?"

"He wants to make a movie. For later."

The Spy stared at her, disbelief crooking his eyebrows. "And you chose me?" At her small jump, he continued. "Oh, he told me he was going to make you choose. Part of his need to humiliate someone and his endless fucking need to brag about it."

He laid the gun on the couch next to his thigh. "But you? You're going to answer some questions, first. And I may strangle you just so I can take a nap without having to try and figure out what you've fucked up for me, now. You kept me up all night last night playing nurse to a madman."

The Cook looked at him. "Is it sexual for you at all, controlling them? What do you get out of it?"

His eyebrows lowered and he started to untie his tie. "Well," he said, drily, "looks like I'll get a little stress relief."

She backed up, watching him closely. "I don't quite understand, I've told you what I told them, and I haven't said anything else. And I don't understand what you're doing with them, either, or what it means. I can see you doing it, but it makes no sense to me." She realized that she was lying fluidly, naturally, so that she almost believed herself.

She understood—she understood exactly the lust to destroy, the intoxicating lust to destroy someone. To take their options away, to strip from them their options, to pull the strings and make them dance themselves to death or harm. The longer she spent there, the more sense it made, the stronger that lust became. It was a strange pleasure, as much like being drunk as sex, and much more about sex than sex itself. She was learning to mirror them, some part of herself emerging, or perhaps simply becoming, drunk on the pain and the hate and the need to destroy.

She did not know who she would become, the creature emerging a monster made of each of them—their desires, their hate, the things they had taught her dissolving the life she'd known before. _A mirror_ , she thought dumbly. _If I am a mirror, what will I reflect?_

Something between her ears shivered, fine cracks forming.

"Now how," he said, his accent starting to burr the words, "can you be smart enough to figure out that I'm provoking them and too stupid to figure out why?" He wrapped the tie around both fists and pulled it taut with a plunking sound. "Silk," he said, by way of explanation. "Good silk is strong, slick, and easy to use for garroting."

He stepped forward slowly, watching her shift and reach for the doorknob. "Wanna play hide and seek, then? I'll even give you a head start."

"Answer me, please."

The Spy cocked his head. "Why should I?"

"Because the Soldier will owe you a favor. Because then you'll know how much I don't know—I told you, I don't understand and I've told you everything I said to them."

"Oh, the movie question. The answer is sure. I'll help," he laughed, low and melodious. "But we'll be filming more than porn. We have different urges, the Soldier and I, but some things we do have in common. And the answer is that if you don't know, you can't know. You either have it, or you don't." He looked at the edge of the sweater and her legs. "I'll give you to the count of twenty to find somewhere to hide. Base is the Soldier's room. One."

She wrenched the door open, running down the hall and vaulting onto the stairs. She couldn't hear the count, but she could feel it, her pulse thrumming and singing, running flat out through the hall, the slap of her thighs and her feet against the concrete loud. She could see the Soldier's door when she heard the sound of the Spy's shoes on the concrete behind her. Her fingers were slippery with sweat as she turned the Soldier's doorknob, pulling the door open just in time for the silk to settle around her neck and pull her up against the Spy. The Soldier looked up from a battered copy of the Bible, taking in the Spy slumped against the wall, his tie digging into the Cook's neck.

"Stop killing her." The Soldier put the Bible down and stood, smoothing his hands down his black shirt and adjusting the white bar around his neck. "We have business to take care of."

She found that if she kept concentrating on that small, hard part of her mind, it was easier not to think about the quiet, intense conversation the Spy and Soldier were having in the corner. Crouched by the desk chair, again, she thought about something collapsing on itself, getting smaller, harder, tighter, somehow becoming a diamond. When the Soldier got out a camera and tripod, she thought about the light scattering from the diamond, about it turning and the small rainbows it might cast on the darkness around it. The Spy walked over and sat on the desk, watching the Soldier set up the tripod and focus the camera. His legs, in their slacks, were inches from her head, and the tie still dangled from his fist. He flicked his tie at her, scattering her thoughts.

"Don't get comfortable. He seems to think he owns you, but I get to do some things I want. And I promise you, you won't like them." The Spy looked down at her. "He's really stuck on the idea of playing father confessor before fucking you, so we're going to have to take turns. I wonder if anyone on RED is religious."

The Cook surprised herself by snapping back, light scattering behind her eyes. "Don't call it fucking. Call it what it is."

The Spy reached down and dug his fingers into the back of her neck, then pulled her to standing. Searching her face, he said softly, "I see we've finally reached the stage where you're cornered in there. They always get snappy at this stage when he's been playing with them because it's creeping up on them and they can feel themselves going away."

Her face went loose in shock.

"I've watched this before," the Spy continued, just as softly. "And you're almost done. A few more days and you'll be jumping like a bunny whenever you think any of us want you to do something."

The Soldier walked up, straightening his cuffs. "I heard her. Snappy?"

The Spy looked at him. "Yep."

"I still don't trust it," the Soldier said. "This one feels a little … slippery … to me. I think there's still something in there to find."

She saw the way the Soldier was looking at the Spy's hand on her neck and she let herself relax into it, watching the flash of annoyance in the Soldier's eyes. He reached out for her hand, pulling her toward him, and she resisted slightly, watching that same flash of annoyance stay slightly longer, heating his gaze.

"Did you play with her any," he asked the Spy.

"I was trying to strangle the little bitch when the door opened." The Spy drummed his fingers against his thigh. "Other than that, no."

"She was gone a long time."

"I don't know what she was doing." The Spy shrugged lazily, and started unbuttoning his vest. The Soldier's eyes stayed on him, looking for tells, details, anything that would say whether or not the Spy was lying. There was nothing the Soldier could find, but he knew better than to trust the Spy.

The Soldier looked down at her, his lips compressing into a pale line. "It looks like she has some confessing to do." He pulled the sweater from her and spun her slowly. "It doesn't look like she'd been fucking anyone."

"I told you," the Spy said, annoyance starting to color his tone. "I tried to strangle her. I didn't fuck her."

The Soldier let go of her and went back to the chest, bringing out a homemade flogger, knots tied over the length of the tails. "I was planning something a little more Protestant, but sometimes nothing does the trick like a little old school punishment." He stripped the black shirt and collar off and pulled a cassock on over his slacks. Paired with his short hair, his five o' clock shadow, and the annoyed expression on his face, the cassock made him seem forbidding. He gestured toward the floor in front of him.

"Crawl. Kneel. And confess."

The Spy leaned down slightly, adjusting the camera on its tripod as he looked through the eyepiece. Satisfied, he went back to sitting on the desk, pulling out and lighting a cigarette. The Cook crawled forward, concentrating on that part of her mind that was curled in on itself, walling itself away in anticipation. Her knees ached against the cold floor, and the occasional, uncontrollable shiver from the temperature of the room made her shiver convulsively. When she reached a position near his feet, she sat back on her heels.

"I don't know what to confess," she said quietly.

"We can start," the Soldier said, caressing the knotted tails, "with what took you so long."

"I didn't know where the Spy was. I tried his room, and looked around the living room, kitchen, and hallways before trying the basement."

"How did you know," the Soldier said, his voice patient, "which door to try."

"The Spy's door was the only door down there without a warning sign or a gun in front of it."

The Soldier let the tails slither out of his hand and wrap gently, bouncing off his thigh. _Doesn't rule out someone else borrowing her_ , he thought, still looking for evidence, _but I'll find that out later_. "Why did you stay?"

She looked up at him. "I told the Spy. I wanted to help."

"I know," the Soldier said, the tails moving gently with his wrist. "I was there. But I don't actually believe it. I also," he flicked his wrist, sending the tails to gently wrap around her arm, "don't believe for a moment that you were gone for over an hour trying to find the Spy's little smoking chamber. But let's do this up right. Let's start with your sins."

The Spy snorted and tapped his ash into the trash can by the desk. The Soldier looked over at him, annoyance briefly crossing his face.

The Soldier looked down. "Do it right."

She looked up at him and took a breath. "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned." She crossed herself, reflexively, stopping part of the way through in shock.

The Soldier's face shifted, like a chameleon or chimera, becoming grave and slightly sad, the cassock becoming simply a part of his normal wear. "How long has it been since your last confession, my daughter?"

"Since I was a child," she said softly.

"Then I would imagine you have much to confess." The Soldier sat down gently on the edge of the bed.

"I …," she found herself struggling to find words, struggling to even say anything of her own will. The Soldier shifted, the tails slithering around his knee like snakes.

"You cannot be free of your sins if you will not confess them."

"I suppose I have a problem with lust."

"You suppose," he said, his voice shaded with reproach, "you have a problem with lust. What sort of problem?"

She shifted on her knees, uncomfortable. His questions and gently disapproving air reminded her viscerally of confession, of habits that had been drilled into reflex in her childhood. The Cook reminded herself what kind of person he was and tried to summon up that small, hard part of herself, but something remained. _If there was a gun_ , she thought _, I'd eat it simply to get the chance to be free_.

The Cook could almost feel it, like hands squeezing her skull, the sensation of being remade into something from which herself, every moment she had thought herself a good person disappearing. The room tilted, sliding underneath her, and she could almost see herself dissolving.

 _To be free_ , she thought, _of what I know_. The edge of the robes shifted with his foot, his eerie patience summoning the thin wooden walls of the confessional and the desire of a child to be freed of the burden of herself. _I know_ , she said silently, _that I was not the problem_.

Her memories disagreed, dragging forth rejection after rejection.

The Soldier sighed quietly. "My child, you cannot be healed if you will not lance the wound."

The hairs on the back of her neck rose—the Soldier's face was solemn and intent, even slightly sad. She couldn't find his normal arrogance in his expression.

"That's terrifying," she whispered. She didn't know whether it was seeing herself in the man in front of her or his ability to become someone else.

A faint smile flashed across the Soldier's face and her skin crawled. "I only want to help you," he said, his voice sincere. "Let me help you."

There was an edge hurtling toward her, floor tilting and tilting until she clung to it, to the side of the mountain in her head, fingertips bleeding, trying not to fall. She had to say something, something to the figure in front of her before he simply beat it out of her. She had to gut herself before he gutted her, to control how deep the cut ran.

"I lust," she said, finally, "too much."

"And what sins have you committed?"

"I couldn't count," she said, quietly. _Murder and lust and hate and rage and_ …. _How can I confess this_ , she thought. _I can't ever leave it behind or do penance for it. I can't forgive myself, either_.

He clicked his tongue. "What was your last sin of lust, my child?"

"I …." The man in front of her was and was not the Soldier, the man who was so violently and persistently stripping her of everything—body, privacy, dignity. The Cook realized she had no idea what to say, whether she was supposed to remind him of the previous night or if she were to confess herself as if he were a stranger.

"Daughter." The Soldier's voice fell into the silence like a rock, shattering her thoughts.

"I slept with a man. I didn't want to." _Rape and rape and rape_ , the voice in her head howled. _Coward. Say what it is. Tell the camera what they have done to you, tell and be damned_.

The Spy shifted on the desk, his expression growing intent in the edge of her vision. The woman's face was naked, agony and loathing etching lines into her skin, the strength of the emotion practically edible in its intensity.

"Did you not make any choices," the Soldier said sternly, "that lead to sex with this man?"

Some part of her was cackling, fracturing, dying. "I stayed," she said dully.

"Did you not understand what staying meant?"

Her eyes fell to the floor and with a wrench in her chest, she nodded.

"Can you not see how the fault falls on you, for choosing to stay?"

A war, behind her eyes—the small hard part of her head flaring and another part asking terrible questions. Did I set myself up to fail? Did I really think I could change things?

"Can you not see it, my daughter? Can you not see that you keep choosing to stay with me?"

The only thing that saved her from falling headfirst into the abyss yawning underneath her was the slight edge of satisfaction in his voice and the rage it inspired.

"Yes," she said, lying with every inch of her body and an odd sense of relief. Something had snapped, and she didn't care what, opening her arms to rage as a child does its mother, comfort seeking. The questions stopped, leaving icy calculation.

He took a breath, and she could feel the sense of satisfaction radiating from him. _I'm doing it_ , she thought. _I'm lying to them both and he believes it_. _I only need one of them to believe it_.

"There is more, isn't there?" The tails across his knee moved, hissing.

She took an abortive breath and looked up. "I am angry," she said, simply, numbers adding up in her head to a partial truth he would believe.

"Anger," he said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Rage."

"I can see it on your face," he said, his voice still gentle. "Confess it to me."

"I hate you," she said. "I hate you all."

"I know," the Soldier said.

"I want to kill you all."

"I know. But you won't, will you? You can't."

It took all the strength she could find not to launch herself across the space between them and try to strangle him. She had no expectation of winning, but she felt like an animal in a cage—desperate. Dying. Drowning. _I'm already dead_ , she thought. _And I'm in my own prosaic hell_.

The Soldier watched her, levelly, the sight of her struggling of no apparent concern to his safety. He gave a slow blink, apparently simply waiting.

"I won't," she finally said, then added, in the sparse silence of her mind: _you'll kill each other_.

"You can't," the Soldier said, his tone shading to pity. "Someone was very unkind to you. They told you that you could, or that you should, think of yourself as someone who can defend yourself. And so you keep sinning, letting rage motivate your behavior, letting it fill your thoughts. But it's more than lust and rage, isn't it? Let's talk about your pride."

At that, she found herself laughing—a dry, barking bleat that was shockingly loud in the silence. She couldn't imagine what, if any, pride she had left. The Soldier's expression cooled, growing stern.

"Laughter won't fix you."

"Pride," she said, letting her voice trail away. "What pride do I have left? What," she struggled to her feet, stiff from the cold concrete and dizzy with hunger, "do I have left that you haven't taken from me?"

"That," the Soldier said, eyes glittering, "is your pride. Your pride is in what you think you've endured, how tough you think you are. Get back down on your knees."

She stood, swaying, exhausted, staring at him. The Soldier reached out and gently pushed down on her shoulder, and she followed his arm down, back to her knees, too tired to do anything else.

"Snappy," he said, softly. "Angry. Prideful. Lusting. Your sins are against your own nature, your own weakness, and only you can provide contrition. Only you can perform penance."

He flipped the handle of the flogger around and handed it to her. "Crawl backward about a foot, and whip yourself."

She looked dumbly at the handle, then took it from him. The Cook thought about hitting him with it, but she was so tired. When she crawled backward, the Spy followed her with the camera, putting her in the center of the frame. She looked at the short tails, at the knots.

"You cannot be released," the Soldier said, "until you make penance and demonstrate your contrition."

She realized, hazily, that he was playing priest and god. _And that_ , she thought, _is funny_. He leaned back on the bed, that same sense of smugness radiating from him. She wanted to thank him for it, to thank him for the little ways that he dropped out of character and gave her something to hate. The flogger snapped up, the tails wrapping around her shoulder and laying spiteful little stings on her back.

"No," the Soldier said. "You can't demonstrate contrition with such a weak effort."

The next strike sizzled through the air and the pain was sharper, waking her from the trance of her exhaustion. Her eyes focused on the Soldier, still sitting on the bed. She made each strike a silent promise, between her body and herself: I will rise. I will rise from this. I will rise and I will have revenge. When he least expects it, I will have revenge. They will punish themselves and it will be worse than this.

I will punish myself for what I am becoming, she thought with a shiver, and it will be worse than this.

The Soldier let her go on, until even her rage was not enough to keep her focused, to let her keep making of it anything more than the painful, humiliating, process of beating herself raw. When she started to slump forward, he spoke.

"You have demonstrated your contrition for your sins against yourself. Remember the lies you have been told and the sorrow they have caused you." He opened his hands. "Come to me," he said, "and show me the depth of your sorrow at the hurt you have caused me by blaming me for your choices."

She left the flogger where it lay and crawled forward slowly, head down.

"No," he said softly. "Look at the camera. Let them see the look on your face." She looked at the unblinking eye of the camera. And for a moment, she let the camera see her devouring rage.

The Soldier hissed. "Not contrite enough, yet, I see."


	19. Escape

The Soldier kept the cassock on, bunching the heavy folds up around his waist and working his BDUs down his hips to give her access. She let her mind wander while her mouth was busy—there were small fractures between the Spy and Soldier, and the Demo and Sniper would work on the Medic, but she had to keep the Spy and Soldier fracturing. She could hear the Spy growing restless behind the camera as she felt the Soldier's thighs tense, and swallowed reflexively, still contemplating the problem of how to keep feeding the Soldier's rage. It was not just, she decided while cleaning the Soldier off with her tongue, a matter of responding with greater desire and pliancy to the Spy. She'd have to go further.

The Cook sat back on her heels and looked up at the Soldier's lazily sated face. She'd have to beg the Spy to take her with him, to convince the Soldier she preferred the Spy's company, that the Spy was better at breaking the mind—the Soldier's small jealousy over her was nothing compared to his need to be the best at controlling, the best at the slow war of attrition in the mind of his victims. She knew the Soldier thought of her as his victim, his property, and from that position she could deal a blow to his pride he would be unable to recover from, that he would have to avenge. And the Spy, already restless and angry, would have to be turned toward the Soldier, unable to be satisfied by abusing her.

Her chain of thought was broken by a sharp slap.

"Don't think," the Soldier panted, "that I don't know your attention is elsewhere." He reached over to a bedside table. "I can think of at least one thing you won't like and can't ignore." He opened the tin of Vaseline, then looked down at the cassock. "Fuck it," he said. "It's black and it wasn't that hard to get."

Behind the camera, the Spy snorted. "You're going to ruin it."

The Soldier looked at him, kicking off his fatigue pants. "I'll keep it as a trophy of sorts. And I can always replace it."

"You're careless. But this does save me some work." The Spy lit another cigarette and sat on the desk, crossing his ankles.

The Cook could see the Soldier bristle and take a breath, his eyelids sliding low and mouth twisting with contempt. When he turned back to her, the contempt had become lust. "Stand up, turn around, and bend over."

She took a breath, trying to steel herself, and complied, letting reluctance show in her slow, wincing movement. The Cook tensed her arms and legs, telegraphing to the camera her discomfort, even hate, and complete lack of desire.

The Soldier chuckled behind her. "I'm going to cheat a bit," he said, "and make you come whether you want to or not. But, my child, if you weren't lying, the prep work for that was done years ago. I have yet to meet a man of god who wasn't interested in anal."

The Vaseline was cold and irresistibly slick. Even clenched as tight as she could, he was able to work a heavy dab of it into her, along with a fingertip.

"Go ahead and tense," he said. "You'll bleed."

"She'll bleed anyway," the Spy said, his voice thickening, "if you do it right."

She dug her fingernails into her ankles.

The Soldier went back for more Vaseline and wormed a finger into her ass. "She's tight enough to cut the circulation off in my finger," he told the camera and the Spy.

"She won't stay that way," the Spy said, with a predatory chuckle.

The Soldier kept working patiently until the muscle gave up, despite her best efforts, and started to loosen. She realized she was shaking, and didn't know if it was rage, or shock, or hate. He worked a second finger into her, and then a third while she ground her teeth together. When he pulled her up and to his lap, he turned them both so that she faced the camera.

"Go ahead," the Soldier said. "Show the camera what you're made of." He pulled her back, lined himself up, and pulled her down, impaling her.

She couldn't stop the gasp. She could feel her face twitching, and briefly wondered what the camera saw—rage, shock, the need to kill and maim, the irresistible knowledge that she had been unable to stop him, a hate more like corrosion than any emotion which might be recognized as akin to anger. The Soldier reached down, hooking her legs, and threw them over his own, where they dangled, unable to touch the ground. She closed her eyes, the muscles in her neck and arms standing rigid.

In her ear, he whispered loudly enough to carry. "Was this your penance for your pride, because you were dirty? Did you help the father like a good little girl? Did you cry?"

As he started to move, she could feel the skin under her eyes shivering, could feel him burning inside her. The Soldier made a quiet moaning noise. "Still tight," he said, lips on her ear. "And your other lovers, at RED—did they just not make use of you like this? I can't imagine they don't."

"But maybe," he said, starting to breathe more heavily, "they just didn't know what it does. How humiliating it is, and how much it can hurt."

She held herself rigid, refusing to relax, focusing on the pain and shutting out his words. The Soldier laughed. "Still putting up a fight. Toss me the vibrator," he said to the Spy.

The Spy rolled his eyes and tossed it over. The Soldier caught it with one hand and flicked it on. She kicked as she saw it descending, turning and trying to get her thighs closed. He raised his, keeping his knees between hers and holding them open.

"You always do that," the Soldier said. "And the really funny thing is that you'd enjoy this no matter what, because that's how you're made. The vibrator just makes you face it before you have time to deny it." He took a deep breath. "You tell yourself a lot of lies."

The Cook twitched and pictured sinking one of her knives in through his eye socket hard enough to fracture the bowl of bone and drive the shards into the brain behind it. When the vibrator touched her, she pictured slitting his throat, cleanly puncturing the heavy vein pulsing in his neck. The vibrator was doing its job—no matter what violence she pictured, the combined friction, pain, and vibration were sending soporific fingers up her spine. She locked her jaw closed as her body started to pulse, the machine wrenching a response from her yet again.

"Very good," the Soldier said in her ear. "Like it or not, my child, this is what you want. This is what your body wants."

She wanted to howl at the camera, to turn, wrenching herself away from him, and beat his face in, stuffing the vibrator down his throat until he suffocated. With a heavy shudder, she felt the Soldier come, his head relaxing down to rest on her shoulder. Her skin crawled, the skin of her face twitching. After a moment, the Soldier pushed her off him to fall on her knees, on the floor. He looked down at his cock.

"A little blood," he said. His eyes skipped over to the Cook, who still crouched on all fours, stomach convulsing as she dry-heaved. "I'd say go your way and sin no more," the Soldier said dryly, "but that'll last as long as it takes the Spy to get naked." He unsnapped, then unbuttoned the cassock. The Soldier held it up, examining the front. "It's a little greasy, but it'll be fine."

The Soldier dug his fingers into his thighs and stretched, then stood up. "Your turn," he said to the Spy, who was already stripping. The Soldier pulled on his fatigue pants and took a cigarette from the Spy's pack, lighting it, and readjusted the camera.

"Get up," said the Spy. When she didn't move, he dug his fingers into the back of her neck, pulling hard enough to separate the heavy layer of muscle painfully. She stayed down, struggling to carry out her plan, to try and appear willing or eager to let the Spy abuse her. "Pride," she whispered to herself.

"Yes, pride," the Spy whispered in her ear, "and the illusion of control. Now get up before I ask for my knife."

She pulled herself up on the bed and with a strength she wasn't sure she had, turned to the Spy and relaxed herself, muscle by muscle. When she had managed to relax most of her body, she opened her eyes. The Spy was standing in front of her naked with a tight, nasty smile on his face. His tie was wrapped around his fist loosely.

"Guess," he said.

She tilted her head, exposing her neck and watching him. With an arched eyebrow, he settled it around her neck and tied a slip knot in it. "If I don't like what you do," he said, "or just because I feel like it, I'm going to slowly tug that knot tighter and tighter." After a brief pause, he continued. "Silk doesn't untie easily once it gets tight, so it won't be coming off unless I cut it off, which I won't do because I like that tie. Or you die. Guess which one I'm looking forward to."

She made herself reach for him, running her fingers slowly down his chest and provoking a surprised shiver from him. In that moment of surprise, she closed the space between them and pressed herself against him, reaching for his suddenly slack head and pulling him down into a kiss. After a moment, he pushed her back and she stumbled, pulling the knot tight.

"What the hell was that," the Spy growled.

Her pulse was loud in her ears, a red haze hanging in her eyes. She stepped forward carefully and knelt down. The Spy let the tie loose, watching her as she leaned all the way down and pressed her lips to his feet. She heard a sharp breath from the Soldier, watching from his seat on the desk.

"What do you think you're doing?" The Spy tugged at the tie, slipping it ever so slightly tighter.

As she kissed her way up his thigh, the Soldier spoke, his voice hard with tension. "What did you tell her when you were bent down?"

"I told her to get up or I'd get the knife out."

The Soldier put his cigarette out onto the corner of his desk. "It had to be something more than that, to get that reaction out of her. What did you do while you were down there with her?"

The Spy tensed as she reached his flaccid cock and sucked it into her mouth, breath short and harsh from the silk around her neck.

"Nothing," the Spy said, staring at the Soldier.

"Nothing," the Soldier said. "Nothing at all."

The Spy looked down, his eyes narrowing. "What are you up to now?"

She let go of him and looked up, trying to make her flushed face seem sincere. "I'm trying to make you happy. You frighten me more than he does."

The Soldier swore and dug his fingers into the edge of the desk. The Spy's brief look of satisfaction at her words was poisonous, tugging at the Soldier's sense of control and successfully enraging him. He reached over, shutting the camera off, and pushed the tripod to the side.

"You aren't," the Soldier said, "better at this than I am."

The Spy, tired of trying to soothe the Medic and sick of dealing with the Soldier's fragile ego, simply pointed at the back of the Cook's head. She made a loud, sloppy noise, eyes rolled up to see his face, and the Soldier's control of his rage slipped entirely.

"Get off him," the Soldier growled. She stayed frozen with a mouthful of the Spy, who had responded despite himself.

The Soldier reached down, grabbing the back of her arm, and pulled hard. Her teeth scraped the Spy as she fell backward. The Spy swore, his control finally snapped by exhaustion—the Medic's neurotic fear, the Soldier's fragile ego, and pain finally pushing him to react. He pushed the Cook aside with a foot and looked over at the Soldier.

"I am sick," he said to the Soldier, "of humoring your shit. Yes, I am better at this than you, or she wouldn't have had to tell you what I was doing."

The Soldier's fingers curled into fists and he stood there, breathing heavily. The Cook edged herself around them while their attention was preoccupied, but waited for the Soldier to take a swing at the Spy and the Spy to grab his fist, pulling him forward, before opening the door very quietly and letting herself out into the hall. Taking off at a staggering run and clawing at the silk tie around her neck, she heard something crash in the Soldier's room. Her feet slapped the concrete and she vaulted over a box, taking the stairs to the basement several at a time until she faced the wall of sentries.

"For the love of god," she shrieked breathlessly, "let me in."

The sentries beeped again at her, their barrels starting to spin.

"Let me in!"

The door cracked open, exposing the sleepless, bagged eyes of the Engineer. He swore, and flicked a remote moments before the first bullet exited the muzzles of the sentries. They drooped, and she nearly knocked the Engineer over in her desperation to get in the door. He flicked the switch again and locked the door, putting a heavy bar over the reinforced plating on the back of the door.

The Cook turned to him, eyes wild. "Is there a shower, a hose, anything down here? Knives?"

The Engineer looked her up and down. "I know that look," he said grimly and pulled out a pocket knife. She let him lean in, rolling her eyes to watch as he carefully sawed the tie from her neck. After she'd taken a few regular breaths, he jerked his thumb toward a chemical emergency shower in the corner, a small bottle of soap beside it. "We've been using that. There's no privacy, but I'm guessing you want to get them off you before you have to take steel wool to your skin."

She walked to the shower, convulsively shivering. The room was silent as she pulled the chain, sending freezing cold water cascading over her, then lathered and scrubbed. After what seemed like a moment, the Engineer reached under the spray and grabbed her hands.

"You've been scrubbing the same spot for the last ten minutes," he said, softly. "It's clean."

She looked over at him, eyes still wild. "It's not clean. I'll never be clean." She looked around the room and realized it was full of men who would not look at her, their backs turned to give her privacy. "I'll never be clean again."

The Engineer sighed, the lines between his eyebrows heavy. "I know how that feels," he said quietly. "But the shower can only help so much. Come on, it looks like I'm probably close enough in size to lend you a shirt and a pair of overalls."

She pulled the clothes on, still dripping wet from the shower. The cuffs on his overalls had to be folded over and over until they were fat bundles so that her feet could touch the concrete, and the sweater's sleeves drooped over her hands.

The Engineer called out, "she's dressed," and the men turned back around. She realized she couldn't look at the pity in the Heavy's face. Picking the nearest mattress on the floor, she laid down with her back to the room and stared at the wall.

"How—," she heard the Pyro start to ask, but a single growl from the Heavy silenced him.

"I guess I'd better double-check the door," the Engineer said, and walked over to the door to run his hands over the hinges for the fiftieth time that day, checking his welding and the tightness of several screws. The Heavy went back to tinkering with his gun on one of the benches. With a frustrated sigh, the Pyro pulled a hunk of bread apart and ate it, staring out the narrow, high windows at the blue sky. The Scout went back to jogging in place, running tight little figure eights in a small part of the large lab.

A few hours later, she felt someone sit on the edge of the mattress. She flattened herself against the wall with a single, quiet whimper, the skin on her back crawling. After a moment, the Engineer spoke.

"When was the last time you ate?"

She pressed herself in tighter, flattening herself against the concrete. She couldn't feel her stomach, or anything but the desire to melt into the wall, to disappear, and the pain from her ass.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it? It's hard to remember to eat when you feel like that. But you have to eat."

The Cook shook her head, banging her forehead against the wall, panic still stampeding through her.

"You have to," he repeated. "Your body needs food."

She didn't respond, and he watched the shiver of her spine, getting all the answer he needed to understand how she felt. His clothes swallowed her, leaving nothing but the tight cords on the back of her ankles and neck visible. In the sleeves of the sweater, her hands were splayed and pressed to the wall.

"Please," the Engineer said. "Please."

The Cook peeled herself away from the concrete, turning slowly and stiffly to face him. The shadows under her eyes were a bruised black, and her skin seemed transparent—veiny and worn through. The Engineer reached out and watched her flinch back so hard that she hit the wall with a dull thud.

"I'm not going to hurt you," the Engineer said. "None of us will hurt you. None of us will rape you."

The whites showed all the way around her eyes when he said the word 'rape,' and the Engineer flinched back himself. She watched him flinch, then took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the wall, slowly sitting up and hunching over her knees. He handed her a hunk of bread, a banana, and a small hunk of cheese.

"It's not much. I've rigged a hot plate to allow a little cooking down here, and I have a mini-fridge, but the only thing I was keeping in there was beer before this."

She forced herself to swallow, the food dry and tasteless. When she'd finished off the food, she looked at him.

"Do you still have beer?"

"I've got better than that down here," he said, "but I'm not sure that's a good idea right now."

"Get me," she said, her voice hard, "something."

He came back wordlessly with a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. She took the bottle, leaving him the shot glass, and opened it. The Cook upended the bottle over her mouth, swallowing as fast as she could. After a few gulps, he took the bottle from her.

"No alcohol poisoning."

The Pyro sat down beside them. "What's going on up there?"

The Cook refused to scoot away from him, instead staring, face hostile. "The Spy and Soldier are fighting. With any luck, one of them will manage to kill the other. The Demo and Sniper agreed to start pranking the Medic, to drive him to paranoia and fear."

The Pyro's eyebrows went up, and the Heavy and Scout wandered over. "You were a busy girl," the Pyro said, his tone admiring.

She pulled her knees into herself, wrapping her arms tightly around them, and stared at him, her face blank of personality.

The Engineer looked over at the Pyro. "Shut up. Just… shut up now. This is a bad time to admire what she had to do to get that fight started."

The alcohol slowly, slowly loosened her arms, and her knees fell. After a moment, personality flowed back into her face. "What I had to do.…" She cackled, wild and high, unable to stop as the laughter became a gut wrenching series of sobs that shook her whole body.

"Can one of us hold you," the Engineer asked, tentatively. "Do you want to be held?"

Her chin tilted up and she stared helplessly at the ceiling, her shoulders shaking.

"I don't want to make it worse," the Engineer said.

At that, the laughter started again. After a moment, she looked down again, her face slick with tears, and she reached for the Engineer. He scooted carefully toward her and wrapped a single arm around her shoulders, careful not to hold her too hard, trying not to remind her of confinement. She put her head on his shoulder, dribbling tears into the fabric of his shirt.

"Tissue," he said to the Heavy, who handed him a roll of toilet paper. The Engineer tore a strip off one-handed and gave it to the Cook, who mopped at her face.

"Sorry," she said.

"Don't apologize," said the Heavy. "Don't apologize for that."

The Pyro shifted uncomfortably, looking away. The Scout simply stared at them all, a hungry expression on his face.

"I'm all right," she said.

The Engineer cleared his throat. "Eventually," he said. "I suppose we can have the nightmares together."

"Yay," she said. "More nightmares."

The Engineer shrugged. "At least we're doing something about it."

The Scout finally spoke. "We're a mattress short for tonight."

The Cook looked at him, the desire to touch naked on his face. "I'm not sure I'm up for much," she said, an edge entering her voice. "I'll just sleep on the floor."

There was an awkward silence, which the Engineer finally broke. "No, you can have mine. I ain't been doing much sleeping anyway. I'll take watch." He looked at her. "We've been doing watch. We're pretty safe here, but I wasn't sure if the Demo would help them. He can get through a door without having to worry about the sentries. All he'd have to do is stand at the top of the stairs and lob explosives."

"He's not any more fond of them than you all are."

"So I hear." The Engineer pulled his arm back from her shoulder and scooted away. "We got a bit of time before sleep. Ya'll want to play any card games?"


	20. Strength is not a Blessing

The Cook kept waking up—a snore from one of the men, the sound of them turning over, the Engineer's boots on the concrete as he paced, and finally her dreams. Snatched images blended with the texture of the walls, the pervasive cold, the blanket, blurring the line between nightmares and wakefulness. She found herself staring at things while she drifted in and out of sleep: flinching, her legs churning and arms twitching. After watching her for awhile, the Engineer crept over.

"Are you asleep," he whispered.

"No," she answered, her eyes stinging.

"Would it help if someone kept you company," he whispered.

She looked up at the exhaustion on his face—an exhaustion as much about his body as it was about the grinding, horrible process of having to live with what had been done to them both. The Cook opened the covers and gestured.

"Just a second, let me wake the Heavy up to take my watch." The Engineer went over to the Heavy's mattress and knelt beside it. With a groan, the Heavy sat up and stretched, then pulled his discarded thermal over the tank top he was wearing and stood up. He picked up a stool and sat, facing the door, his arms crossed over his chest. The Engineer came back and kicked his boots off. He gingerly laid down beside her. After a pause, he gave her his back, cringing slightly as she wrapped an arm around him.

"I'm not them," she whispered.

He put his hand over hers where it lay on his chest and squeezed gently. "I know. It's just hard."

The Cook sighed, then pressed herself to his cold back, her lips hovering just above his spine. She clutched him like a teddy bear, a talisman against bad dreams, and his skin slowly warmed. The Heavy watched her fall asleep, followed by the Engineer.

"Good," he said, very quietly. "It's about time they both relaxed."

Dreams of faceless fighters on the field, their faces and bodies shifting as she watched—first blue then red, blurring together though she knew the men were different. Dying, coming back, and dying again, they fought silently and determined, and she stood off to the side, trying to convince them to stop without success. The Cook woke up, hours later, to the sound of shouting. The Heavy was standing in front of the door, face set in a scowl, listening to the voice filtering into the room. After a moment, she was able to make sense out of the words.

"I know that little bitch is in there." The voice was breathy, pain cutting the words into fine fragments.

The Engineer's entire body thrummed with tension where it pressed against hers. She looked over to see that the Scout and Pyro were both pulling themselves up, weapons in hand.

"I thought she was out there," the Heavy growled through the door. "It's not our job to keep track of her for you."

The ghost of a laugh trickled through the gap beneath the door. "You wouldn't be able to resist her if she came for protection, you emotional piece of shit. Now turn the guns off and open the door."

"Hell, no," the Heavy said. "We aren't opening the door until I know for sure respawn is on for everyone. You crazy motherfuckers are liable to try and kill us all." The Heavy stepped to the side of the door and looked over to the Cook, raising his finger to his lips. She nodded, eyes wild. The Engineer dug his fingers into the Cook's arm where it still lay, wrapped around him.

"I'm not—," the voice cut off for a labored breath, "fucking around. Open the door."

"Sounds like you're hurt pretty bad," said the Heavy. "Which one of you fucks is it?"

A labored stream of French, punctuated by gasps, answered him.

"The fuck did you do with the other one," the Heavy asked.

"He's not feeling well," the Spy said. "He forgot the first rule of fighting: if you're going to fight, fight to kill. _Fils de pute_ was showing off."

"Sounds like he fought well enough. Why don't you just get your other buddy to heal you?"

"The Medic has locked himself in the surgery. He says someone is trying to make him crazy." The Spy took a loud breath that ended in a bubbling cough. "As if he needed to be more crazy."

The last word tapered away with a faint click, and the Heavy turned sideways beside the door, gesturing energetically at the rest of the room. The Engineer rolled off the mattress and pulled the Cook away from the wall. The first roar of the Spy's revolver hitting the reinforced door made the room beyond ring like a gong. The plating on the back of the door acquired a quarter-sized dent near the knob. The next few shots happened quickly, the last breaking through to ricochet against the counter tops across the room.

"I don't know what you think you're going to do when you get in here," the Heavy roared over his ringing eardrums. "You still haven't done anything about the turrets."

The creaking laugh coming in through the ragged hole by the doorknob went on for some time, interrupted by gasps. "I don't care about getting in," the Spy said. "I just want that little bitch to know what'll happen if she sets foot outside this door."

The Heavy sighed. "I told you, we don't have her. If I were her, I'd have taken off across the desert for the RED base. Now stop shooting the goddamn door."

"I'll remember this," the Spy gasped.

"You do that," the Heavy said. "I'm sick of this shit anyway." The Heavy sighed, then made a curt gesture at the rest of the room and waited for the sound of footsteps to retreat before crossing the hole in the door. He knelt down by the Cook.

"Don't," he whispered, "say anything until we get that hole covered. You okay?"

"Give me a goddamn gun," she whispered. "And knives."

"You ever used one before—oh, right." He flushed. "Sorry, I forgot you'd been out in the field."

She stared at him, intent and angry. "Give me something I can kill with," she whispered. "Or I'll improvise."

The Heavy's eyebrows raised, and he gave her the utility knife he had strapped to his belt.

"Got anything bigger," she whispered, and the Heavy flushed.

"Uh … okay, sure, hang on." The Heavy looked around, startled, before the Pyro sighed and pulled a surprisingly large knife from his mattress.

"I usually use an axe," the Pyro whispered. "But this is fun, too."

The blade was heavy and hooked like a talon, the handle made of bone with a heavy, ball-tipped pommel. She hefted it, noticing that it weighed at least four pounds. The whole knife was as long as her forearm.

"Try not to break it," the Pyro whispered. "I'm going to be pissed if you manage somehow to snap the blade or notch it up. It's a custom job."

"I doubt I'll break it." She stood up, knife in one hand, and rolled her wrist, cutting at the air to see how the knife handled. The knife's balance was low, toward her hand, making her have to push harder to get it moving and pull back slightly to stop it for cross cuts. The Pyro handed her its sheath, and she threaded a bit of rope from one of the benches through it and the belt loops on the overalls. The bottom thong she tied loosely around her leg, immediately feeling a little better.

"Where's that heating plate," she whispered. "And what do we have to cook with? I'll make breakfast."

After breakfast, the Engineer patched the hole and added an angled skirt and a layer of rubber to the bottom of the door. "The fumes ain't good for you," he said, "but we're all subject to respawn, or we will be. The rubber'll block noise better than the metal will."

"What," she said, "do you all do all day?"

The Pyro answered her. "You up for sparring?"

"I'll try."

The Heavy retired to his mattress, and the Pyro, Scout, Engineer and Cook cleared a space in the middle of the room. The Cook started to stretch, working her stiff arms and legs until they could move easily. The Pyro merely watched her as she rolled her neck, pulled her arms across her chest, bent her legs, and slowly warmed herself.

"You going to fight in all those bulky clothes," he asked. "There's a lot to grab on that outfit."

The Cook looked down. "Not like I can do much about it."

"Well, we could cut a few inches off the bottom of those overalls," the Pyro said. "The sleeves, however, we can't do much about. I can give you a t shirt if you like, just for sparring." He walked over to his mattress and pulled a t shirt from a bag near it. "Go on. It'll be better than trying to keep your hands out of your sleeves."

She pulled the sweater off and the t shirt on quickly, untying the knife and putting it aside. She could feel the Pyro's eyes on her, as well as the Scout, but neither man said anything. After a quick struggle, she hacked a few inches from the bottom of the overalls, and stood, barefoot, facing the Pyro.

"You had any wrestling?" He took an odd stance, leaning slightly forward.

"Nope." She leaned back when he reached out to grab her, letting his hand fan by her.

He grunted and came forward again. She spun to the side, starting to breathe more heavily, and grabbed his arm, swinging him around.

"Nice," he said, then snaked his wrist around hers, pulling her close and linking his arms behind hers. He slowly forced his arms up. "No kicking," he said, twisting to prevent her from kicking his knee cap.

She twisted, slipping out of his hold, and circled him, sweat sticking the t shirt to her.

"Feels good to work some of it out, don't it?" The Pyro leaned forward with both arms and when she tried to lean back, grappled her at the waist, pulling her in again. Instinctually, she raised both arms and hammered down on his shoulders with her elbows, knocking his arms free.

"Very nice," he said. "You sure you don't have any training?"

"Just what comes naturally," she said. "I've had a little with knives, and a little with guns, and a whole lot of fighting."

"Some people have the touch," he said, and bum-rushed her, knocking her over and landing on her. The breath left her lungs in a pained grunt, and she wriggled against him, trying to free her arms. He tightened his grip, arms hard, and looked down at her. She stopped struggling, eyes narrowed. The Pyro's expression was searching, and she realized he was enjoying the struggle, enjoying feeling her pinned beneath him. She wriggled slightly more and he shifted to accommodate her, still holding her arms to her side. While he was distracted, she positioned her knee, and then brought it up hard into his groin.

The Pyro made a wheezing noise and rolled off her, curling into a ball.

"Serves you right," the Engineer said, and went back to tinkering with a small box on one of the far benches.

When he could breathe again, the Pyro looked over. "That's a dirty trick," he said. "I'm not complaining, but if we're fighting dirty, I'd like to know first."

"You were fighting dirty," she said, elbows resting on her knees and head down. "I was just following up."

The Pyro sat up, staring at her, and said nothing for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Let's just say I'm feeling you out."

"Well don't. Not without asking." That small, hard part of herself flared with anger, and she realized that she was seconds from actually trying to hurt him.

Someone outside the door yelled, "Open up in there." With a start, they all recognized Miss Pauling's voice. The Engineer went to the door and opened it a crack, then used his remote to shut the guns down and let her in.

Miss Pauling looked around the room, noticing the mattresses, the Pyro and Cook on the floor, the Heavy sitting up on his mattress. "Have you all been staying in here the whole time?"

The Engineer nodded toward the Cook. Miss Pauling looked at the Cook, unable to keep relief entirely from her face, tension running out of her. Miss Pauling sighed gently before speaking. "Well, most of you, anyway."

"I should congratulate you, you know," Miss Pauling said to the Cook. "I ended up watching the tapes anyway. You managed to convince the Spy and Soldier to kill each other and end their decades-long pissing contest. Blutarch is throwing furniture in his mansion, and has given me the authority to retire the Medic for refusing to heal either of them."

The Cook let herself sink back to the floor, laying flat on her back, the words echoing through her like a scream of joy and loss. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, the floor tilting under her and the room spinning gently.

"I took the liberty," Miss Pauling said, "of destroying that tape."

The Cook simply sprawled out on the floor like a broken doll and breathed. Distantly, she heard the Engineer make a single, choked sob before shoving the side of his hand into his mouth.

"I haven't been able to find a full replacement yet," Miss Pauling said, "but we have located several likely candidates."

The Cook realized she couldn't cry. She was working as hard as she could to cling to the actual sound of Miss Pauling's voice in a flood of inarticulate emotions that she could not recognize. The click of Miss Pauling's heels came closer, and she knelt down.

"I'm going to think a little less of you if you faint," she said, with a faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "You can't faint, tough girl. It'll ruin the boys' opinion of you."

"Let her faint if she wants to," said the Heavy. "Fuck, I'm feeling a little woozy myself."

"Come on," said Miss Pauling. "Stand up."

The Cook took Miss Pauling's hand and levered herself to her feet. She looked at the Engineer, red-faced and shaking, and stumbled past Miss Pauling toward him. When she reached him, she sank down, pulling him down with her, and wrapped her arms around him. He crumpled into her, grabbing the front of the overalls, and started to sob loudly.

Miss Pauling walked over. "We made an excellent choice," she said, finally, her face softening. She leaned down and patted the Engineer once on the back. Looking at the Cook, she smiled ruefully. "A better choice than I thought we had."

The Heavy laid back down flat on the bed and took a deep breath. "I think," he said, "that I need a damn drink."

The Pyro stood up slowly. "I think I'll join you."

The Cook looked over at them both. "I think you'll find that your teammates will also join you. Hell, RED might join you for that." She looked at Miss Pauling. "How are they doing, over there?"

Miss Pauling coughed. "Not well. The Sniper had a meltdown and broke most of the furniture in the living room, and the Pyro set it on fire. He's been setting fires all over the place. The Medic had to sedate him to keep him from burning the whole place down to relieve his stress. The Soldier has been… I don't even think anger covers it. I think they're all a bit stir crazy. They haven't been able to kill anyone for awhile, and they've been worried. I've been watching the Spy chain smoke his way through the last few days. If we didn't have respawn, he'd have given himself lung cancer by now."

"Do you have some way to communicate with them," the Cook said.

"Sure."

"Tell them I'm all right, and I'll be coming back tomorrow. I think we need to do some drinking over here, tonight."

Miss Pauling smiled crookedly. "I think I'll take my single day off a year and join you all. You have no idea how many administrative headaches that just disappeared. I have to go retire the Medic and clean up the mess, but I think I can manage a night of drinking. See you all in a few hours."

The Pyro spoke up. "Want some help? Come on, Scout."

The Scout stood up slowly. "Yeah. I just can't believe they're gone."

"Well," said the Pyro, "there's only one way to be sure." He shouldered his axe. "I assume," he said to Miss Pauling, "that you have shovels?"

She stood. "Yeah," she said. "I have shovels."

The Cook looked down at the Engineer, who had stopped sobbing and was simply sitting there, hiccupping with the tail end of hysteria. "I need," she said, "to go see the bodies. For closure."

He looked up at her, then fisted the tears from his eyes. "I get it," he said.

She reached over and gently pulled his face to hers, and kissed him on the forehead. "I'll be back," she said. "Don't worry."

He smiled wanly at her. "I'll be okay. I can take care of myself."

"I know." The Cook kissed his forehead again. "You're strong."

"That ain't a blessing." The Engineer took a deep breath and closed his eyes, tilting his head back. "But it's better than not."

The Cook squeezed his hand and stood up. Before anyone else could talk, she walked to the door and opened it, walking past the drooping sentries.


	21. They Forget that They're Human

The Spy was slumped on the stairs near the top, his gun near his hand. A small pool of blood underneath him had dried to a dull brown at the edges, leaving a candy-bright center. The outhouse smell of fresh death suddenly, irrationally reminded her of garlic and the dumpsters outside restaurants—sweet decay and filth. Brown splotches in small sprays near his mouth attested to his last breaths, coughing up blood. His chest was misshapen, and his eyes starting to cloud. The Cook reached down, nudging his coat aside, to see that he had several broken ribs. His ribcage bent in at an odd angle on the exposed side, inward, as if caved in along a line. She realized he'd dragged himself, bloody handprints on the wall attesting to his difficulty walking, down to the door, to wait for her to come out, for revenge. He'd dressed himself to hide the injury and dragged himself there to waste his dying moments waiting to kill her.

She shivered and walked past him, seeking the Soldier's room. When she reached the familiar door, she paused. Miss Pauling, the Pyro, and the Scout caught up with her, her hand hovering over the door knob. They waited quietly, watching, for a moment.

"Go on, boys," Miss Pauling said. "Grab the Spy and take him outside the base. We'll be here."

When both men had walked off, Miss Pauling stepped forward. "You don't have to go in there," she said.

"I do," the Cook said softly. "I have to see."

"I promise he's dead. I double-checked with a gun."

"I have to see," the Cook repeated. "I can't … I can't imagine him dead, and I have to know when he haunts my nightmares that he's gone."

Miss Pauling looked at her, face softening. "I understand," she said. "He didn't even touch me, but he played a starring role in some of my nightmares."

The Cook looked at her, surprised.

"Oh, I still have nightmares," Miss Pauling said. "Everyone's brain finds a way to torture them." She reached past the Cook for the door and turned the handle. "Go in when you think you're ready."

The Cook took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The room was trashed—the desk chair broken and a leg lay near the Soldier's hand. The mattress was half off the bed, and several tools had been taken from the Soldier's rack. The awl, crusted with blood, stuck out of the Soldier's chest. His head was scattered chunks across the edge of the mattress and floor, bits of brain and scalp in a spray pattern behind his body. Bits of bone were embedded in the mattress behind him. The bottom of his face was still intact. The Cook followed his bare feet up to his lips and stayed here. Her memory fed her his lips moving, the water falling around them both, the feel of his kiss burning her forehead. Her memory fed her the sound of his voice, mockingly calling her a poor baby, his lips on her ear, whispering, as she suffocated underneath him.

Miss Pauling watched the Cook's face grow vacant. The Cook's lips formed words, sibilant with her breath, and Miss Pauling wondered what she was saying.

After a few minutes, the Cook shook herself and looked away. Her jaw clenched, and then she leaned down and took his bloody dog tags, unsnapping them to avoid dragging them through the viscera above his head.

"I'll keep my own trophies," she told his body softly. Her voice rose. "I wasn't too weak after all, you stupid fuck."

"No, you weren't," Miss Pauling said. "But that's a thing men like him do. They get so fucking impressed by the fact that they're male that they forget they're human." She walked over and kicked his corpse. "And they make stupid fucking mistakes."

Miss Pauling turned to the Cook, watching her look at the dog tags before putting them into a pocket on the overalls.

"His name was John," the Cook said, meeting Miss Pauling's eyes. "And he's dead now."

"That's usually the best thing you can say about that kind of enemy." Miss Pauling took several steps back and turned toward the door.

"I don't know how I feel about this." The Cook found herself staring at his bare feet. His body seemed smaller, pathetic without the glory of fear and the force of his malice.

Miss Pauling smiled wryly at her over a shoulder. "Give it a few weeks. You'll have feelings."

"I have them now," the Cook said, staring at the body again. "I just … they're like a flood. I can't figure out what they are, just that they're washing through me."

"Give it awhile," Miss Pauling repeated. "Come on. If you want to help, you should probably make food. I can't imagine anyone here has eaten much for the last few days, and this deserves a little celebration. I'd count it as a favor to be able to eat something that wasn't in a McDonald's wrapper—I've been searching for candidates and driving around the US for days. It can't be good for me, even with respawn."

The Cook laughed once, weakly. "Back to work?"

Miss Pauling looked at her, expression sharpening. "It's better than sitting around."

The Cook put her hands up. "You're probably right. I'll enlist the Engineer. He shouldn't be sitting around by himself."

By the time the bodies had been buried, the whole BLU team had emerged from their various hidey-holes. They dragged tables and chairs, even the living room sofa out of the base, and the Sniper and Demo both piled a huge mass of sun-baked wood inside the loose circle of furniture. The Pyro smiled before he doused it in kerosene and set it alight—like his RED counterpart, fire seemed to relax him. The Cook watched him step back from the roaring flame with a sigh that bordered on obscene from her position on the couch. The BLU Demo produced several crates of liquor, and the Cook, not bothering with food, snagged a bottle and collapsed on the couch. No one sat next to her, leaving her the space to stretch out with her head turned, watching the flames and polishing off the bottle in her hand. The flames were hypnotic, and she was content to let her brain empty of everything but the flame and her body flattened against the cushions. After a moment, she realized she was hearing a noise and turned her head. Above her, leaning over the edge of the couch, was the RED Spy.

"Hello _Vipere_ ," he said softly. "Are we still speaking?"

She stared at him, stunned, and looked around. The RED mercenaries stood near the edge of the light, and their BLU counterparts stared at them, openly hostile.

"You did not think," the RED Spy said quietly, "that we would not come as soon as we could, did you?"

She sat up, falling back and propping herself up carefully. "I solved a few problems," she slurred at the RED Spy.

"So I have been told." His expression was carefully neutral. "I hear it has been much calmer at the BLU base."

"We buried them today," she said, blinking sleepily at the RED Spy. She raised an arm and pointed at the fire. "And now we're celebrating." The Cook fell back. "I think I'm happy."

"I think, _Vipere_ , that you're drunk. But it is not so bad to be." He sighed. "Look at your hair, your pretty hair." The Spy reached down, slowly, and touched her face. She flinched, and he closed his eyes. "It did not go well," he murmured. "Your time here."

She cackled at him, knocking her bottle over on the sand. "It went fantastic. Can't you tell? I'm fantastic. We're all fantastic. Everything is fantastic." In the back of her throat, the laughter sounded, just a moment, like a sob.

"Ahh, _Vipere_. I'm so sorry." The RED Spy gripped the back of the couch, digging his fingers into the tweed. "I'm so very sorry."

"I didn't break," she said. "I won."

"No, _Vipere_ , you did not break, despite what they did to you." The RED Spy looked around the fire, ire heating his voice. "I don't know exactly what happened, but we will see you lot on the field."

"No one invited you," growled the BLU Heavy.

"Just … don't," the Cook slurred. "Let it go for a night."

"We brought our own party," the RED Demo said, bottles clinking in the box in front of him.

She could see the RED Pyro torn between looking at the BLU team and the flames dancing in front of him.

"Please," she said, trying to pronounce the words carefully. "Just for one night."

Miss Pauling emerged from the darkness, wearing a t shirt and jeans. She cleared her throat.

"Gentlemen," she said. "Pax for a night. I need some time off."

The RED Scout blushed up to his ears. "Yeah," he said. "I can do that."

The RED Spy sighed, tension flowing out of him. "Did you want company," he said to the Cook. "I do not want to make things worse."

She frowned at him as he slid in and out of focus. "I hate you, but you helped. What you did."

The Spy flinched, his head ducking. "It is how operatives are made. They must break you before you can learn how to resist. I did not know if they would capture you again. I wanted to armor you."

"You're an asshole for not telling me what you were up to." The Cook lifted her legs. "But you can sit on the couch."

He came over the back of the couch and sat down, her legs on his lap. "Whose overalls are those? And what happened to your hair?"

"The Engineer. And it made a convenient handle so I hacked it off."

She could feel him flinch again under her calves, but he said nothing. The RED Sniper approached the couch and, wordlessly, reached down and ran his fingers over the top of her head. He took a sharp breath, then let it out slowly and stayed there, hand on her stubbled head. She tilted her chin up. "Siddown."

He came back with a chair and a bottle, pulling the chair to the edge of the couch. He didn't touch her again, but she could feel him sitting there, drinking quietly. She closed her eyes, the stars above her spinning gently.

Some undetermined time later, she was poked on the arm. Miss Pauling crouched beside her on the sand. "Eat something."

"Not hungry," the Cook murmured, realizing that she was alone on the couch, but someone had pulled a blanket over her. Conversations eddied around her, laughter and speech becoming babble—a murmuring tide that she couldn't pick individual voices from.

"Don't care," Miss Pauling said, leaning in to balance with one hand on the couch.

The Cook realized hazily that Miss Pauling was swaying gently, and that her hair was down, a mane of black tendrils that moved gently in the breeze. "You're drunk," she said.

"You're drunk. Stick this in your face." Miss Pauling poked the Cook's face with a bun full of meat.

The Cook obediently took a bite, then the bun, and while Miss Pauling watched, devoured it hungrily.

"Sit up," Miss Pauling said. "I wanna sit down."

The Cook carefully sat up, looking around. The mercenaries sat in bunches and pairs by the fire, cross factions, talking. Miss Pauling flopped down on the couch next to her and poked her with an elbow. "Thank you," she said. "I've been trying to fix this shit forever."

"You're welcome," the Cook said, the food starting to sober her up slightly. "Did you ever find anyone for me to work with?"

"Not yet," Miss Pauling said. "It's not easy to find the right mix." She sighed and tilted her head back on the couch. The Cook looked over at the line of Miss Pauling's neck, watching her breathe, before tilting her own head back and scooting closer.

"What're you up to," Miss Pauling asked, softly.

"Nothing in particular," the Cook said. "Sometimes, it's just nice to touch."

Miss Pauling paused, as if unsure what to say. After a moment, she said, "Don't get too close. I'm pretty lonely myself. This job never stops, and it's been awhile."

The Cook put her head on Miss Pauling's shoulder and a few seconds later, Miss Pauling put an arm around her. They sat, watching the mercenaries talk.

"The RED Soldier covered you up," Miss Pauling said. "I think he doesn't know what to say right now."

"What is there to say," the Cook said. "We all went to war in our own ways."

Miss Pauling chuckled dryly. "A kind of war, anyway. Except it won't end until the brothers die or get bored." Her arm tightened, momentarily. "I didn't know it would last this long."

"When did you take the job?" The Cook shifted, working her head into the hollow of Miss Pauling's shoulder.

"Don't you know it isn't polite to ask how old I am?" Miss Pauling paused. "Oh hell, I'll answer. I'm about 100 years old."

"Jesus," the Cook said, and they sat quietly for awhile, watching the men sneak glances over at the couch. The RED Medic and Heavy slowly drifted together, sitting closer and closer until their thighs were pressed together. After a tense moment, the RED Heavy reached for his Medic and the Medic leaned over slightly, until his head rested on the Heavy's shoulder. The Heavy looked around, as if daring anyone to comment, but no one did. A few minutes later, the RED Sniper and Spy wandered off into the darkness together.

The BLU Heavy snorted. "Well shit, I should have known from the way the Sniper covers his ass on the field."

The RED Soldier glanced over at the Cook and Miss Pauling, then back into the flames. The two Scouts had apparently run back into the base for baseballs and bats, and were drunkenly playing a game of two-man baseball that involved entirely too much arguing. The Pyros appeared to be throwing small objects into the flame, causing gouts of colored sparks.

"I didn't think those two would get along, honestly," the Cook said.

"They have fire," Miss Pauling said, and shrugged. "You know what they say about first loves, and there's not a damn thing both of those men love more than fire."

The BLU Heavy stood up and stretched. "I think," he said, "that I'm going to go have the best night of sleep I've had in awhile." He pointed at the two women on the couch. "You two have fun. And if you want company, you know where I am."

Miss Pauling made a shooing motion with her free hand. "Believe it or not," she said, "it's possible to just cuddle."

"Not if I were in the middle," the Heavy said with a smirk, and walked back in the base.

The Cook and Miss Pauling looked at each other. "Straight men," Miss Pauling said, and the Cook laughed.

The RED Soldier finally stood up and walked over, standing just out of reach, fingers knotted around the neck of a bottle. "I … are you okay?"

"Yeah, Solly," the Cook said. "I'm good for now."

"I'm sorry about all this," he said, quietly. "I don't know what else to say."

"I'm sure," the Cook said, "that I'll have nightmares. But right now, I just want to be drunk and careless."

He smiled faintly. "I understand that one."

"Oh siddown," the Cook said. "You don't mind, do you," she asked Miss Pauling.

"Nah," Miss Pauling said. "I'm trying to get to drunk and careless, myself."

The RED Soldier sat at the very edge of the couch. "I don't want to intrude."

"Oh for fuck's sake," the Cook said.

"It's all right," Miss Pauling said, tension in her voice. "Just don't assume you can do anything without asking."

"I won't," he said quietly. "I just wanted to check and see if everything was all right."

"Is it just me," the Cook said to Miss Pauling, "or does everyone need reassurance tonight?"

Miss Pauling was silent for a moment. "One of the things you learn," she finally said, "about managing people is that they need a lot of reassurance. If you coop a bunch of people up and set them to killing each other for eternity, they get a little fragile."

The RED Soldier cleared his throat. "We're not entirely fragile."

"No," Miss Pauling said, "but you guys have been in a pressure cooker for the last fifty years. It'd make anyone weird."

"How about you," the Cook said.

Miss Pauling said nothing.

"Sorry," the Cook said.

"Don't worry about it," Miss Pauling said. "I think we're working on drunk and careless."

The RED Soldier cleared his throat again. "I think I'm going to go back to the base. I just needed to see that you were okay."

The Cook sat up and threw herself into his lap, hugging him. After a stiff moment, he hugged her back, lowering his nose to her hair. He whispered something she couldn't hear into her scalp, then let her go.

"See you tomorrow," he said.

When the Cook sat up, he smiled at them both and wandered off into the darkness.

"Still want to cuddle," Miss Pauling asked.

"Yeah," the Cook said, and settled back into Miss Pauling's arm. As the fire started to die, the party broke up, people wandering off and leaving the two women sitting on the couch, watching the embers slowly gray.


	22. We Can Have Our Nightmares Together

The ashes dulled from a bright red-orange to a dulled red, and started to fall into small chunks, still radiating heat into the chill pre-dawn air. The Cook wrapped her leg over Miss Pauling and wrapped her arms around her, sharing body heat and the comfort of touch. With a push, Miss Pauling let herself be guided over onto her side, laying in front of the Cook, both under the blanket the RED Soldier had left on the couch. The Cook snuggled her nose into Miss Pauling's hair, following the faint smell of jasmine.

After awhile, Miss Pauling sighed. "I'd like to say I don't want something from you, but I do."

The Cook chuckled, noise muffled by the silky black strands against her face. "I wondered when you were going to ask."

"I didn't want an audience. I have to maintain a certain persona for this job." Miss Pauling turned on the couch, facing the Cook. "And they judge a bit, whether they admit it or not."

"Answer me one question," the Cook said. "What did you do before this?"

Miss Pauling finally blushed. "I'll answer, but don't you dare tell them."

"Cross my heart." The Cook crossed her breasts, watching Miss Pauling's eyes follow her hand.

"I was a lady of the evening." Miss Pauling held her breath, waiting for the Cook to respond.

After a moment, the Cook shrugged. "I won't tell," she said. "You wouldn't be the first woman I've slept with to do that for a living."

Miss Pauling smiled in relief. "I got this job when I killed a john. I ran into the Administrator's long-dead nephew on the job, and he felt sorry for me. They caught me dissolving the john in lye, in the bathtub. Everyone says that works—let me tell you, you need something stronger for that shit."

The Cook's eyebrows raised in surprised amusement. "Good to know." She leaned forward, watching Miss Pauling's face soften as she did, and gently touched her lips to Miss Pauling's lips.

The kiss was at first a slight pressure, the sensation of softness on her lips before, without breaking the kiss, Miss Pauling slid backward off the couch, pulled the Cook up by the shirt to sitting, and straddled her. When Miss Pauling pulled back from the kiss, they were both breathing heavily.

"I'm usually on top," Miss Pauling said. "Can you do this right now?"

"This," the Cook said, "is a million miles different from what those three dead fucks did. Will you stop if I tell you to?"

Miss Pauling's shocked face resolved into hard lines. "Always. You don't work that fucking job without running into bad johns and pimps." Her voice took on a nasty edge. "I am not, would never—"

The Cook cut her off by leaning forward and capturing Miss Pauling's lips, running her fingers through the unruly mane of black hair to cup Miss Pauling's skull. As they kissed, Miss Pauling gently, but firmly, pulled the Cook's hands from her hair and pinned them to the back of the couch. The Cook leaned forward slightly, letting her hands stay pinned, to press her lips more firmly to Miss Pauling. Miss Pauling made a noise in the back of her throat and trailed kisses down the Cook's cheek to the sensitive skin of her neck. The Cook moaned loudly, letting her head loll back and to the side as Miss Pauling sucked a mouthful of skin into her mouth and flicked it with a muscular tongue. The Cook rolled her hips in response, begging with her body.

Miss Pauling chuckled, pleased. "Keep your hands on the couch."

The Cook kept her hands still and smiled up at Miss Pauling as she unbuckled the overalls and peeled them down. Miss Pauling stood and leaned forward, capturing the Cook's nipple through the t shirt and sucking it to hardness. The Cook shivered, eyelids sliding low. Miss Pauling rolled her eyes up, watching the effect as she gently bit down and then tightened her teeth and the suction until the Cook gave a small shriek, wriggling. The Cook watched Miss Pauling hover over her nipple, the breeze cooling the neat circle of saliva on the other side until it nearly hurt. Her untouched nipple tingled in anticipation, and Miss Pauling waited for her to shift before giving a tiny lick. The Cook pouted at her, and Miss Pauling leaned forward again, sucking the nipple into her mouth and reaching up to knead the Cook's breast.

"Naked," the Cook whined. "I don't care if it's cold."

Miss Pauling grinned at her. "Needy?"

"You have no idea," the Cook said, her eyes serious. "It's completely different when you want to be there."

With the discretion of someone who has been in many bedrooms, Miss Pauling didn't ask the obvious question and made a slow, teasing game of pulling the Cook's shirt off, allowing her to move her hands from the couch to get the material over her head and teasing the fabric over the Cook's nipples.

"There is," the Cook said with a moan, "a great deal to be said for fucking someone with similar anatomy."

Miss Pauling only smiled and helped her work the bottom of the overalls off her hips. Naked, the Cook lay in the dim light of the embers staring at Miss Pauling. Miss Pauling stood and stripped, eyes fixed on the Cook and watching her face warm. The lavender t shirt skimmed slowly off, exposing a black lace bra, which Miss Pauling unhooked and tossed to the side. The mane of black hair fell around her and stirred in the breeze, a moving mass of the night. Miss Pauling smiled at the enraptured look on the Cook's face and pulled the button on her jeans through its hole, kicking off her boots and socks before pushing the jeans down.

The Cook made a quietly needy noise, her arms obediently pressed to the couch, as Miss Pauling rolled her panties down her legs.

"Please," the Cook said.

Miss Pauling stepped forward and knelt down between the Cook's thighs. The Cook rolled her hips at Miss Pauling, legs wide.

"Please," she said again.

Miss Pauling started at the Cook's knee, kissing along the squirming line of her thigh, missing her cunt and kissing down the other leg.

"Oh for the love of god," the Cook yelled.

Miss Pauling laughed, a low, husky sound. "You can't expect me," she said, "to just please you."

The Cook's response was a pained whimper.

Miss Pauling started by breathing against the sensitive skin on the inside of the Cook's thighs, ghosting warmth along the hollow of her legs and between them before licking her—tiny, tight little licks while the Cook cried out in the empty desert air, head back and shamelessly loud.

Miss Pauling reached in, pulling gently along the Cook's lips and tugging the skin while the Cook wriggled, breasts shaking, trying to get those probing fingers into her. Slowly, gently, she leaned down to give a long, wet lick to the Cook's clit. The Cook shrieked.

"Fucking goddamn it. PLEASE."

With a grin, Miss Pauling worked a finger into the Cook, seeking the smoother skin of her g spot and pressing up.

The Cook collapsed back onto the couch, fingers clawing at the fabric, and Miss Pauling slowly dragged her fingers in and out of the Cook. After a satisfying minute of watching the Cook whimper, Miss Pauling lowered her mouth to the Cook's clit, gently sucking her clit into her mouth and rubbing her tongue along it, teasing at the edge of the Cook's hood.

The Cook cried, legs straining up to wrap around Miss Pauling's head and not to squeeze.

"Come on," said Miss Pauling against the inside of her thigh. "Let go."

The Cook wrapped Miss Pauling's head with her thighs and screamed into the night, squeezing Miss Pauling's fingers until they tingled.

"More," she panted, looking at Miss Pauling's face buried between her thighs.

Miss Pauling obliged, working three fingers into the Cook, who shuddered with the friction and feeling of fullness, the sensation rolling into a second orgasm, her body spasming.

Miss Pauling watched her eyelids flutter and subside, slowly fucking the last twitches out of her with her bundled fingers.

"Now," the Cook said, "it's your turn. Don't think I'm going to let you get away with not screaming for me."

Miss Pauling laughed and stood, then bent over the couch and waggled her ass at the panting Cook.

"Shit," the Cook said. "Do you have any idea what the RED Scout would do to see that view."

Miss Pauling snorted. "If he wants some, he'll have to get the balls up to ask."

The Cook stood, panting and swaying, behind the curve of Miss Pauling's ass. "How do you—," she started.

"Fuck me," Miss Pauling said. "Quit playing around and fuck me."

The Cook laughed, a wild sound in the night, and teased Miss Pauling open with a single finger. Miss Pauling grunted and followed the finger shamelessly, looking for the sensation of friction. The Cook knelt, pressing her face between the globes of Miss Pauling's ass, flicking her asshole with a wet, warm tongue while she worked a finger slowly in and out of Miss Pauling. Miss Pauling moaned, legs spread wide and knees trembling, fingers digging into the couch.

"Touch yourself," the Cook suggested, huskily. Miss Pauling reached between her legs and gently rubbed her clit, leaning into the Cook's tongue, which sought out and gently worked its way into her ass while working two fingers into Miss Pauling.

"Fuck, yes," Miss Pauling hissed. "More."

The Cook worked a third finger into Miss Pauling, tongue worming past the rings of muscle in Miss Pauling's ass. With a low, growling moan, Miss Pauling squeezed the Cook's fingers and tongue.

"One more," the Cook panted, and redoubled her efforts, wringing another from Miss Pauling.

"Fuck," Miss Pauling yelled, a low, hoarse sound that echoed between the bases.

When Miss Pauling stopped squeezing her fingers, the Cook pulled them out of her, slowly, saving the quaking muscles around her.

"Give me a moment," Miss Pauling said, slowly sitting down. "I really needed that."

"I bet," the Cook said. "Me, too, actually."

They both sat on the couch and leaned toward each other, sharing body heat.

"I want to do this again," the Cook said.

"Me, too," Miss Pauling said. "I miss being … something other than the cleaner. That's all I do, clean up messes." Her tone became bitter. "I feel like a part of a machine. Not human, just … a little part of a machine."

"Please come back," the Cook said. "I miss being with someone who has a pussy of their own."

They dressed quietly.

"We can't stay out here," Miss Pauling said. "The fire's more or less dead and it's cold."

"Is there somewhere we can go that isn't.…" The Cook's voice trailed off.

Miss Pauling looked over at her. "I can't stay," she said. "I wish I could, but I can't let them see me vulnerable. They're too much what they are for that." She kissed the Cook lingerly, the taste of sex in their mouths. "But I can steal a few moments like this here and there."

The Cook was the first to pull away, saddened and curling in on herself.

"Oh, no," Miss Pauling said, watching the Cook's eyes glitter with unshed tears. "Please don't. I know. But please don't. I'll come back when I can."

"I know you will," the Cook said, softly. "It's just been—," her mouth worked silently.

Miss Pauling leaned in and kissed her on the head. "If I had to guess," she said, "the BLU Engineer would probably keep his hands to himself and appreciate the company. I will be back, when I can."

"I'll be waiting," the Cook said, and stood up, walking toward the BLU base.

She found the Engineer in his workshop, drinking quietly with his back to the wall.

"Thought you were busy tonight," he said, words slurring together. "Had a good talk with the RED Engineer. Smart guy. I'm gonna have to get more education to keep up."

The Cook sat down beside him. "I thought we could have our nightmares together," she said.

The Engineer looked over at her, the alcohol stunning him to silence. She took the bottle from him. "Lay down," the Cook said. "Let's try to get some sleep."

He laid down, letting her wrap herself around him. "I don't think I can fuck," he said breathlessly. "Too drunk."

The Cook chuckled. "It's not always about sex."

"Well, yeah, but I'd like to…."

She stroked the side of his face. "Go to sleep," the Cook said. "We'll get to it in the morning."

With a half-hearted grumble, he snuggled into her and let himself drift off into sleep. She stayed awake for some time afterward, listening to him snore before falling asleep.

She dreamed of monsters with familiar faces.


End file.
